Eloquent Disconnectable

Disconnect Laravel Eloquent models from their database connection at runtime.

Why this package?

In many applications following Clean Architecture or Hexagonal Architecture, you want to:

• Prevent database connections from leaking into the Domain or Application layers.
• Ensure models returned from the infrastructure layer are read-only and safe to use.
• Avoid accidental lazy-loading or persisting in views, services, or domain objects.

eloquent-disconnectable provides a simple way to “cut” the database connection of a model or collection before returning it from repositories or infrastructure services, while keeping the original model attributes and already loaded relations accessible.

Benefits

• ✅ Prevents lazy-loading of relations.
• ✅ Prevents persistence operations (save, delete, push) on disconnected models.
• ✅ Keeps already loaded relations accessible.
• ✅ Helps enforce Clean Architecture principles by isolating the domain from database concerns.

Installation

Require via Composer:

composer require jeremy379/eloquent-disconnectable

Usage

In a Model

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use YourVendor\EloquentDisconnectable\Disconnectable;

class User extends Model
{
    use Disconnectable;
}

Disconnect a single model

$transaction = User::with('order')->first();
$disconnected = $transaction->disconnect();

// Access normal attributes
echo $disconnected->id;

// Access already loaded relations
echo $disconnected->order->id;

// Attempting DB operations will fail
$disconnected->save();       // RuntimeException
$disconnected->load('cart'); // RuntimeException
$disconnected->otherRelation; // RuntimeException

Why and where to use it

• Infrastructure layer / repository: disconnect models before returning them to the Domain layer.
• Domain layer / services / controllers: ensures models are read-only and cannot accidentally hit the database.
• View / API layer: safe to render attributes and loaded relations without DB risk.

Clean Architecture Enforcement

+-------------------+
| Domain Layer      |
| (Entities, DTOs)  |
| - No DB access    |
+-------------------+
          ↑
          |
+-------------------+
| Infrastructure    |
| (Repositories)    |
| - DB access only  |
+-------------------+

By disconnecting Eloquent models:

• Domain layer never touches the DB.
• Models are pure data objects for business logic.
• Already loaded relations are preserved, so performance stays optimal.

License

MIT © Jérémy Dillenbourg