Adding Request Context in Laravel Applications

<?php
 
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Context;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
 
class RequestContext
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        Context::add('request_id', Str::uuid()->toString());
    }
 
    public function addUserContext()
    {
        if (Auth::check()) {
            Context::add('user_id', Auth::id());
            Context::add('user_type', Auth::user()->type);
        }
    }
 
    public function logAction(string $action)
    {
        Log::info("User performed {$action}");
    }
}

Let's explore a practical example using request context in a middleware and API request logging:

<?php
 
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
 
use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Context;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
 
class ApiRequestLogger
{
    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        // Add basic request context
        Context::add('request_id', Str::uuid()->toString());
        Context::add('path', $request->path());
        Context::add('method', $request->method());
        // Add user context if authenticated
        if ($request->user()) {
            Context::add('user_id', $request->user()->id);
            Context::add('api_key', $request->user()->api_key);
        }
        // Add performance metrics
        $startTime = microtime(true);
 
        $response = $next($request);
        Context::add('response_time', round((microtime(true) - $startTime) * 1000, 2));
        Context::add('status_code', $response->getStatusCode());
        // Log the API request
        Log::info('API request processed');
 
        return $response;
    }
}

The Context facade enriches your application's logging by providing valuable metadata that persists throughout the request lifecycle, making debugging and monitoring more effective.