Roles and Permissions in Laravel With spatie/laravel-permission

spatie/laravel-permission is the most widely adopted role and permission package for Laravel — it adds roles and granular permissions on top of Laravel's own auth system rather than replacing it.

1. Install and set up

composer require spatie/laravel-permission
php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Spatie\Permission\PermissionServiceProvider"
php artisan migrate

Add the trait to your User model:

use Spatie\Permission\Traits\HasRoles;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use HasRoles;
}

2. Create roles and permissions

use Spatie\Permission\Models\Role;
use Spatie\Permission\Models\Permission;

$editorRole = Role::create(['name' => 'editor']);
$permission = Permission::create(['name' => 'edit articles']);
$editorRole->givePermissionTo($permission);

3. Assign roles to users

$user->assignRole('editor');
$user->givePermissionTo('publish articles'); // direct permission, no role needed

Permissions can be assigned directly to a user, or granted implicitly through a role — a user has a permission if it's attached directly OR through any role they hold.

4. Checking permissions in code

if ($user->can('edit articles')) {
    // ...
}

if ($user->hasRole('editor')) {
    // ...
}

5. In Blade templates

@can('edit articles')
    <a href="https://readerstacks.com/articles/{{ $article->id }}/edit">Edit</a>
@endcan

6. Gating routes with middleware

Route::middleware(['role:editor'])->group(function () {
    Route::get('/admin/articles', [ArticleController::class, 'index']);
});

Route::middleware(['permission:publish articles'])->group(function () {
    Route::post('/articles/{article}/publish', [ArticleController::class, 'publish']);
});

Roles vs. direct permissions — when to use which

Roles are the right tool when a group of permissions genuinely travels together (an "editor" always gets the same bundle of abilities). Direct permissions are better for one-off exceptions — granting a single extra permission to one specific user without creating a whole new role just for them.