Request-driven development

Article.php

<?php

namespace App\News;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Article extends Model
{
    public function publish()
    {
        return $this->forceFill([
            'published_at' => $this->freshTimestamp(),
        ])->save();
    }
}

ArticleController.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\News;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use App\Http\Requests\PublishArticleRequest;
use App\News\Article;

class ArticleController extends Controller
{
    public function publish(PublishArticleRequest $request, Article $article)
    {
        $request->handle();
        
        return redirect()
            ->route('article.show', $article)
            ->withSuccess(trans('messages.article_published'));
    }
}

PublishArticleRequest.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;

class PublishArticleRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function authorize()
    {
        return $this->user()->can('publish', $this->article);
    }

    public function rules()
    {
        return [];
    }
    
    public function handle()
    {
        return $this->article->publish();
    }
}

Example showing form request classes being used by controllers to perform the action it intends in a Laravel 5.x application.

So long as route–model binding is used, $this->article in the request class would be an App\News\Article instance. The corresponding route would look something like this:

Route::post('articles/{article}/publish', 'News\ArticleController@publish');