A Practical Guide to Laravel × DDD × Clean Architecture

About this guide

A 24-chapter guide for developers experienced with SPA development (Vue/React) to learn domain-driven design (DDD) and clean architecture with Laravel, step by step. Starting from the basics of Laravel, you build up strategic design (where to draw the lines), tactical design (how to build inside them), clean architecture implementation, operational quality, and a comprehensive hands-on practice in a continuous flow.

What makes this guide different

Incremental: learn in the order Laravel basics → strategic design → tactical design → architecture implementation → operational techniques → comprehensive practice
No Laravel experience needed: Chapter 2 covers the basics of Laravel API development before moving on to DDD
A consistent example: follow how each concept lands in implementation using the order system of an e-commerce site
Modern PHP assumed: targets PHP 8.2+ (readonly / enum / constructor promotion) and Laravel 11+

About the versions used here

This guide is written against Laravel 11 and PHP 8.2. The current release is Laravel 13 (released in March 2026, requiring PHP 8.3 or later), and parts of the project layout have changed since, such as where service providers are registered. The design thinking behind DDD and clean architecture does not depend on the version, but check the official documentation for the latest Laravel-specific configuration and syntax. If you want to follow the basics of API development on Laravel 13, see the Laravel API development guide.

Structure of the guide

Learning path

The guide is organized into an introduction plus five parts, so you can learn step by step from the basics of Laravel to DDD in practice.

Introduction

Chapter	What it covers
01 Getting started	The aim of this guide and the architecture it assumes
02 Basics of Laravel API development	Controller, FormRequest, Eloquent, DI

Part 1: Strategic design

Chapter	What it covers
03 Why DDD	The limits of the Fat Controller / Fat Model
04 An overview of DDD	The two layers: strategic and tactical design
05 Strategic design	Subdomains, ubiquitous language, context maps
06 EventStorming	A workshop for finding the model in the business

Part 2: Tactical design

Chapter	What it covers
07 Basic concepts of DDD	Domain objects, aggregates, repositories
08 Value objects	Immutable domain objects that encapsulate business rules
09 Entities	Domain objects with an identifier and a lifecycle
10 Aggregates	The consistency boundary and the aggregate root
11 Domain services	Business logic that does not belong to an entity
12 Domain events	Loosely coupling aggregates
13 OOP and the tactical patterns	Which pattern each principle shows up in

Part 3: Clean architecture and Laravel

Chapter	What it covers
14 A DDD architecture in Laravel	The 4-layer structure and dependency inversion
15 Designing the use case layer	Command / Query separation and DTOs
16 Designing the presentation layer	FormRequest, thin controllers, and API resources
17 The repository pattern	The boundary between domain and persistence
18 Domain model and table design	Mapping and indexes

Part 4: Practical techniques

Chapter	What it covers
19 Transaction management	Where to place the consistency boundary
20 Error handling	Mapping domain exceptions to HTTP statuses
21 Testing strategy	The test pyramid and layered testing
22 Authentication and authorization design	JWT and the division of responsibilities across layers

Part 5: Comprehensive practice

Chapter	What it covers
25 In practice: implementing the order system	An example that cuts across all layers
26 Conclusion and next steps	Introducing DDD incrementally

Who this guide is for

Frontend engineers with SPA development experience (Vue/React) who want to learn backend API development
Developers without Laravel experience, as long as you know basic PHP syntax
Anyone feeling the pain of "Fat Controller" and "Fat Model"
Anyone unsure of where to put business logic
Anyone who wants to write more maintainable code

Prerequisites

Level	Knowledge
Required	Basic PHP syntax (classes, interfaces)
Required	Database basics (tables, relations)
Required	Basic API concepts (HTTP methods, JSON)
Recommended	Basic object-oriented concepts (encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism)
Not required	Laravel experience (this guide covers it from the basics)

About this guide​

Structure of the guide​

Learning path​

Introduction​

Part 1: Strategic design​

Part 2: Tactical design​

Part 3: Clean architecture and Laravel​

Part 4: Practical techniques​

Part 5: Comprehensive practice​

Who this guide is for​

Prerequisites​

Recommended ways to read​