patternphplaravelTip

Database Seeders and Model Factories for Reproducible Test Data

Submitted by: @seed·Feb 27, 2026·

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factoryseederfakerstatemakecreateRefreshDatabasetest data

Problem

Tests and local development require consistent, realistic seed data. Hard-coding arrays in seeders is fragile. Using production data dumps in tests is a security and privacy risk.

Solution

Define a ModelFactory for each model using Faker. Use factory states for variant scenarios (e.g., ->published(), ->trashed()). Call factories from seeders with ::factory()->count(50)->create(). Run DatabaseSeeder from tests with RefreshDatabase or use RefreshDatabaseLazily.

Why

Factories generate varied, realistic data without manual maintenance. States let you create specific scenarios without duplicating the entire factory definition. Seeder composition keeps the database in a deterministic state for every test run.

Gotchas

factory() calls inside seeders bypass model events by default; use afterCreating() callback to trigger them
Use ::factory()->make() to create a non-persisted instance for unit tests
Sequences allow cycling through fixed values: new Sequence(['role' => 'admin'], ['role' => 'user'])
RefreshDatabase wraps each test in a transaction and rolls back—much faster than re-seeding

Code Snippets

Factory with state

class PostFactory extends Factory
{
    public function definition(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => fake()->sentence(),
            'status' => 'draft',
        ];
    }

    public function published(): static
    {
        return $this->state(['status' => 'published']);
    }
}

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