The Php Times

Freek Van der Herten presents Wayfinder in the context of There There, a Spatie helpdesk created after two decades of running support for open-source projects and SaaS applications. The product uses Laravel and Inertia and is in private beta. Its AI assists support agents, with people retaining control of the conversation and the model polishing replies.

import {
 add as addTeamMember,
 remove as removeTeamMember,
} from '@/routes/app/settings/workspace/teams/members';
removeTeamMember.url({ team: team.ulid, user: member.ulid });
addTeamMember.url({ team: team.ulid, user: member.ulid });

React applications often scatter URLs across fetch calls, form actions, and links. A renamed Laravel route or a newly required parameter can reach production without a compile-time warning. Wayfinder generates a function for every named route, and its .url() method builds the address with checked parameters. If a route parameter changes from user to member, TypeScript flags the affected callers. Route names also become import paths, which makes them easier to find through editor autocomplete.

Controllers receive generated functions as well. The example uses MessageRetryController with fetch and a POST request to retry a failed outbound message. Renaming the PHP controller breaks the TypeScript build. The @laravel/vite-plugin-wayfinder plugin watches Laravel routes and controllers during development and regenerates the functions after changes. Van der Herten reports fewer bugs from route changes. Fetch calls no longer return unexpected 404s, and arguments about trailing slashes have faded.