Building JSON APIs with Laravel

Laravel is widely used to build backend APIs for modern frontends.

## API routes

```php
Route::get('/posts', [ApiPostController::class, 'index']);
```

## Return JSON

```php
public function index() {
  return Post::latest()->paginate(10);
}
```

## API Resource

```bash
php artisan make:resource PostResource
```

```php
public function toArray($request) {
  return [
    'id' => $this->id,
    'title' => $this->title,
    'created_at' => $this->created_at->toISOString(),
  ];
}
```

## API flow

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  A[Client] --> B[API Route]
  B --> C[Controller]
  C --> D[Resource]
  D --> E[JSON]
```

APIs allow your Laravel app to serve web and mobile clients.

In the next tutorial, we will secure APIs using Laravel Sanctum.