How to Add Soft Deletes to Every Model/Migration By Default?

I'm a big fan of using Soft Deletes functionality for pretty much all Eloquent models. Just in case. Too many times I had clients asking me to restore the "deleted" information. So, how to automate that process a bit?

Generally, how do we add Soft Deletes? By adding a Trait into the Model:

1use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
2 
3class Task extends Model
4{
5    use SoftDeletes;
6}

Also, we need to add the deleted_at to the migration:

1Schema::create('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
2    $table->id();
3    // ... other fields
4    $table->timestamps();
5    $table->softDeletes(); // THIS ONE
6});

Now, how can we ensure that whenever we run php artisan make:model and php artisan make:migration, the new files would contain those changes?

We can customize the default so-called Stub files that are the foundation of what is generated.

Run this artisan command:

1php artisan stub:publish

It would copy the files from the /vendor folder into the new folder called /stubs. Among those files, we are interested in everything around Models and Migrations.

stubs/migration.create.stub:

1// ... other code
2 
3public function up()
4{
5    Schema::create('{{ table }}', function (Blueprint $table) {
6        $table->id();
7        $table->timestamps();
8    });
9}

So, all we need to do is add the third line here:

1public function up()
2{
3    Schema::create('{{ table }}', function (Blueprint $table) {
4        $table->id();
5        $table->timestamps();
6        $table->softDeletes();
7    });
8}

Same thing with the Model stub file.

stubs/model.stub:

1namespace {{ namespace }};
2 
3use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
4use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
5 
6class {{ class }} extends Model
7{
8    use HasFactory;
9}

After adding the SoftDeletes:

 1namespace {{ namespace }};
 2 
 3use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
 4use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
 5use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
 6 
 7class {{ class }} extends Model
 8{
 9    use HasFactory, SoftDeletes;
10}

And that's it: now try to run php artisan make:model SomeModel -m and enjoy the model/migration with Soft Deletes.