Relationships

In addition to the variety of fields we’ve already discussed, Nova has full support for all of Laravel’s relationships. Once you add relationship fields to your Nova resources, you’ll start to experience the full power of the Nova dashboard, as the resource detail page will allow you to quickly view and search a resource’s related models:

​

HasOne

The HasOne field corresponds to a hasOne Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a User model hasOne Address model. We may add the relationship to our User Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasOne;

// ...

HasOne::make('Address'),

Like other types of fields, relationship fields will automatically “camel case” the displayable name of the field to determine the underlying relationship method / attribute. However, you may explicitly specify the name of the relationship method by passing it as the second argument to the field’s make method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasOne;

// ...

HasOne::make('Dirección', 'address'),

​

HasOneOfMany

The HasOne relationship field can be transformed into an “has one of many” Eloquent relationship using the ofMany method. For example, let’s assume a User model hasMany Post models. We may add the “has one of many” relationship to our User Nova resource like so:

use App\Nova\Post;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasOne;

// ...

HasOne::ofMany('Latest Post', 'latestPost', Post::class),

​

HasMany

The HasMany field corresponds to a hasMany Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a User model hasMany Post models. We may add the relationship to our User Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasMany;

// ...

HasMany::make('Posts'),

Once the field has been added to your resource, it will be displayed on the resource’s detail page.

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasMany;

// ...

HasMany::make('Posts'),

​

HasOneThrough

The HasOneThrough field corresponds to a hasOneThrough Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a Mechanic model has one Car, and each Car may have one Owner. While the Mechanic and the Owner have no direct connection, the Mechanic can access the Owner through the Car itself. You can display this relationship by adding it to your Nova resource:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasOneThrough;

// ...

HasOneThrough::make('Owner'),

​

HasManyThrough

The HasManyThrough field corresponds to a hasManyThrough Eloquent relationship. For example, a Country model might have many Post models through an intermediate User model. In this example, you could easily gather all blog posts for a given country. To display this relationship within Nova, you may add it to your Nova resource:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\HasManyThrough;

// ...

HasManyThrough::make('Posts'),

​

BelongsTo

The BelongsTo field corresponds to a belongsTo Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a Post model belongsTo a User model. We may add the relationship to our Post Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User'),

use App\Nova\User;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('Author', 'author', User::class),

​

Peeking at BelongsTo Relationships

When hovering over a BelongsTo link when viewing the index or detail views, Nova will show a small card allowing you to “take a peek” at the linked relation:

​

Preventing Peeking at BelongsTo Relationships

Relationship peeking is enabled by default; however, you can prevent the user from peeking at the relation using the noPeeking helper on your BelongsTo field:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('Author')
    ->noPeeking(),

You may also use the peekable method to determine whether the user should be allowed to peek at the relation:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('Author')
    ->peekable(function (NovaRequest $request) {
        return $request->isResourceDetailRequest();
    }),

​

Nullable Relationships

If you would like your BelongsTo relationship to be nullable, you may simply chain the nullable method onto the field’s definition:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->nullable(),

​

Title Attributes

When a BelongsTo field is shown on a resource creation / update page, a drop-down selection menu or search menu will display the “title” of the resource. For example, a User resource may use the name attribute as its title. Then, when the resource is shown in a BelongsTo selection menu, that attribute will be displayed:

To customize the “title” attribute of a resource, you may define a title property or title method on the resource class:

​

Disable Ordering by Title

By default, associatable resources will be sorted by their title when listed in a select dropdown. Using the dontReorderAssociatables method, you can disable this behavior so that the resources as sorted based on the ordering specified by the relatable query:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->dontReorderAssociatables(),

​

Filter Trashed Items

By default, the BelongsTo field will allow users to select soft-deleted models; however, this can be disabled using the withoutTrashed method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->withoutTrashed(),

​

BelongsToMany

The BelongsToMany field corresponds to a belongsToMany Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a User model belongsToMany Role models:

use App\Models\Role;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsToMany;

// ...

public function roles(): BelongsToMany
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Role::class);
}

We may add the relationship to our User Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

/**
 * Get the fields displayed by the resource.
 *
 * @return array<int, \Laravel\Nova\Fields\Field>
 */
public function fields(NovaRequest $request): array
{
    return [ 
        BelongsToMany::make('Roles'),
    ];
}

You may customize the resource class used by the relationship field by providing the second and third arguments to the make method:

use App\Nova\Author;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Pseudonyms', 'pseudonyms', Author::class),

Once the field has been added to your resource, it will be displayed on the resource’s detail page.

​

Pivot Fields

If your belongsToMany relationship interacts with additional “pivot” fields that are stored on the intermediate table of the many-to-many relationship, you may also attach those to your BelongsToMany Nova relationship. Once these fields are attached to the relationship field, and the relationship has been defined on both of the related models / resources, they will be displayed on the related resource index.

For example, let’s assume our User model belongsToMany Role models. On our role_user intermediate table, let’s imagine we have a notes field that contains some simple text notes about the relationship. We can attach this pivot field to the BelongsToMany field using the fields method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Roles')
    ->fields(function ($request, $relatedModel) {
        return [
            Text::make('Notes'),
        ];
    }),

Of course, it is likely we would also define this field on the inverse of the relationship. So, if we define the BelongsToMany field on the User resource, we would define its inverse on the Role resource:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Users')
    ->fields(function ($request, $relatedModel) {
        return [
            Text::make('Notes'),
        ];
    }),

Since defining the field on both ends of the relationship can cause some code duplication, Nova allows you to pass an invokable object to the fields method:

use App\Nova\RoleUserFields;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Users')->fields(new RoleUserFields),

In this example, the RoleUserFields class would be a simple, invokable class that returns the array of pivot fields:

<?php

namespace App\Nova;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

class RoleUserFields
{
    /**
     * Get the pivot fields for the relationship.
     */
    public function __invoke(NovaRequest $request, Model $relatedModel): array
    {
        return [
            Text::make('Notes'),
        ];
    }
}

​

Pivot Computed Fields

Laravel Nova also allows you to define computed fields within the field list of a belongsToMany relationship field:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Boolean;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Users')
    ->fields(function ($request, $relatedModel) {
        return [
            Text::make('Notes'),

            Boolean::make('Has Notes', function ($pivot) {
                return ! empty($pivot->notes);
            }),
        ];
    }),

​

Pivot Actions

Typically, Nova actions operate on a resource. However, you may also attach actions to belongsToMany fields so that they can operate on pivot / intermediate table records. To accomplish this, you may chain the actions method onto your field’s definition:

use App\Nova\Actions\MarkAsActive;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Roles')
    ->actions(fn () => [
        new MarkAsActive,
    ]),

Once the action has been attached to the field, you will be able to select the action and execute it from the relationship index on the parent resource’s detail page.

​

Title Attributes

When a BelongsToMany field is shown on a resource creation / update page, a drop-down selection menu or search menu will display the “title” of the resource. For example, a Role resource may use the name attribute as its title. Then, when the resource is shown in a BelongsToMany selection menu, that attribute will be displayed:

To customize the “title” attribute of a resource, you may define a title property or title method on the resource class:

​

Disabling Ordering by Title

By default, associatable resources will be sorted by their title when listed in a select dropdown. Using the dontReorderAttachables method, you can disable this behavior so that the resources as sorted based on the ordering specified by the relatable query:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Roles')
    ->dontReorderAttachables(),

​

Allowing Duplicate Relations

By default, Laravel Nova ensures that “belongs to many” relationships are unique. However, if necessary, you may instruct Nova to allow duplicate relationship entries.

To get started, you should ensure that your pivot record’s id column is available by using the withPivot method when defining the relationship on your Eloquent model. In this example, let’s imagine that a User may purchase a Book one or more times:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsToMany;

// ...

public function books(): BelongsToMany
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Book::class)
                ->using(BookPurchase::class)
                ->withPivot('id', 'notes')
                ->withTimestamps();
}

Next, we can define the Nova relationship that allows duplicate relations using the allowDuplicateRelations method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

/**
 * Get the fields displayed by the resource.
 *
 * @return array<int, \Laravel\Nova\Fields\Field>
 */
public function fields(NovaRequest $request): array
{
    return [ 
        BelongsToMany::make('Books')
            ->fields(fn () => [
                Text::make('Notes'),
            ])->allowDuplicateRelations(),
    ];
}

​

MorphOne

The MorphOne field corresponds to a morphOne Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a Post has a one-to-one polymorphic relationship with the Image model. We may add the relationship to our Post Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphOne;

// ...

MorphOne::make('Image'),

​

MorphOneOfMany

The MorphOne relationship field can be transformed into a “morph one of many” Eloquent relationship using the ofMany method. For example, let’s assume a Post has a one-to-many polymorphic relationship with the Comment model. We may add the relationship to our Post Nova resource like so:

use App\Nova\Comment;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphOne;

// ...

MorphOne::ofMany('Latest Comment', 'latestComment', Comment::class),

​

MorphMany

The MorphMany field corresponds to a morphMany Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a Post has a one-to-many polymorphic relationship with the Comment model. We may add the relationship to our Post Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphMany;

// ...

MorphMany::make('Comments'),

​

MorphTo

The MorphTo field corresponds to a morphTo Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a Comment model has a polymorphic relationship with both the Post and Video models. We may add the relationship to our Comment Nova resource like so:

use App\Nova\Post;
use App\Nova\Video;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphTo;

// ...

MorphTo::make('Commentable')
    ->types([
        Post::class,
        Video::class,
    ]),

As you can see in the example above, the types method is used to instruct the MorphTo field what types of resources it may be associated with. Nova will use this information to populate the MorphTo field’s type selection menu on the creation and update pages:

​

Nullable MorphTo Relationships

If you would like your MorphTo relationship to be nullable, chain the nullable method onto the field’s definition:

use App\Nova\Post;
use App\Nova\Video;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphTo;

// ...

MorphTo::make('Commentable')
    ->types([
        Post::class,
        Video::class,
    ])->nullable(),

​

Peeking at MorphTo Relationships

When hovering over a MorphTo link when viewing the index or detail views, Nova will show a small card allowing you to “take a peek” at the linked relation:

​

Preventing Peeking at MorphTo Relationships

Relationship peeking is enabled by default; however, you can prevent the user from peeking at the relation using the noPeeking helper on your MorphTo field:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphTo;

// ...

MorphTo::make('Author')
    ->noPeeking(),

You may also use the peekable method to determine whether the user should be allowed to peek at the relation:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphTo;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

MorphTo::make('Author')
    ->peekable(function (NovaRequest $request) {
        return $request->isResourceDetailRequest();
    }),

​

Setting Default Values on MorphTo Relationships

When setting the default value for a MorphTo field, in addition to setting the field’s initial value using the default method, you also need to specify the class name of the resource to be used. You may accomplish this via the defaultResource method:

use App\Nova\Post;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphTo;

// ...

MorphTo::make('Commentable')
    ->default(1)
    ->defaultResource(Post::class),

​

MorphToMany

The MorphToMany field corresponds to a morphToMany Eloquent relationship. For example, let’s assume a Post has a many-to-many polymorphic relationship with the Tag model. We may add the relationship to our Post Nova resource like so:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphToMany;

// ...

MorphToMany::make('Tags'),

​

Pivot Fields

If your morphToMany relationship interacts with additional “pivot” fields that are stored on the intermediate table of the many-to-many relationship, you may also attach those to your MorphToMany Nova relationship. Once these fields are attached to the relationship field, they will be displayed on the related resource index.

For example, on our taggables intermediate table, let’s imagine we have a notes field that contains some simple text notes about the relationship. We can attach this pivot field to the MorphToMany field using the fields method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphToMany;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

/**
 * Get the fields displayed by the resource.
 *
 * @return array<int, \Laravel\Nova\Fields\Field>
 */
public function fields(NovaRequest $request): array
{
    return [
        MorphToMany::make('Tags')
            ->fields(fn ($request, $relatedModel) => [
                Text::make('Notes'),
            ]),
    ];
}  

Of course, it is likely we would also define this field on the inverse of the relationship. So, if we define the MorphToMany field on the Post resource, we would define it’s inverse on the Tag resource:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphToMany;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

/**
 * Get the fields displayed by the resource.
 *
 * @return array<int, \Laravel\Nova\Fields\Field>
 */
public function fields(NovaRequest $request): array
{
    return [
        MorphToMany::make('Posts')
            ->fields(fn ($request, $relatedModel) => [
                Text::make('Notes'),
            ]),
    ];
}

Since defining the field on both ends of the relationship can cause some code duplication, Nova allows you to pass an invokable object to the fields method:

use App\Nova\TaggableFields;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphToMany;

// ...

MorphToMany::make('Users')->fields(new TaggableFields),

In this example, the TaggableFields class would be a simple, invokable class that returns the array of pivot fields:

namespace App\Nova;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\Text;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

class TaggableFields
{
    /**
     * Get the pivot fields for the relationship.
     */
    public function __invoke(NovaRequest $request, Model $relatedModel): array
    {
        return [
            Text::make('Notes'),
        ];
    }
}

​

Title Attributes

When a MorphToMany field is shown on a resource creation / update page, a drop-down selection menu or search menu will display the “title” of the resource. For example, a Tag resource may use the name attribute as its title. Then, when the resource is shown in a MorphToMany selection menu, that attribute will be displayed:

To customize the “title” attribute of a resource, you may define a title property or title method on the resource class:

​

Collapsable Relations

By default, the BelongsToMany, HasMany, and MorphToMany relationship fields are shown on the resource detail page. However, this can quickly become cumbersome if a resource has many performance-intensive relationships which cause the page to be slow.

For this reason, Nova allows you to mark as relationship as collapsable. When a relationship is collapsable, users may collapse some of the relations for a given resource and Nova will remember their preferences on subsequent page loads. Collapsed relationships are not retrieved from the database until the relationship is expanded in Nova’s user interface:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphToMany;

// ...

MorphToMany::make('Tags')
    ->collapsable(),

You may also indicate a relationship should always be collapsed by default via the collapsedByDefault method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\MorphToMany;

// ...

MorphToMany::make('Tags')
    ->collapsedByDefault(),

​

Searchable Relations

By default, when the BelongsTo, MorphTo, BelongsToMany and MorphToMany relationship fields are shown on a resource creation / update page, a simple drop-down selection menu will be displayed. However, this can quickly become cumbersome if a resource model has many records. For example, imagine a drop-down selection menu populated with over 10,000 users!

Instead of displaying a drop-down selection menu, you may mark your relationships as searchable. When a relationship is marked as searchable, a beautiful search input control will be displayed instead:

To mark a relationship as searchable, chain the searchable method onto the field’s definition. If you would like to conditionally determine if a field should be searchable, you may pass a closure to the searchable method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->searchable(),

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->searchable(function ($request) {
        return true;
    }),

You may also instruct the relation field to display the resource’s subtitle by invoking the withSubtitles method when defining the field:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->searchable()
    ->withSubtitles(),

​

Relatable Query Filtering

If you would like to customize the relatable query, you may do so by invoking the relatableQueryUsing method:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->relatableQueryUsing(function (NovaRequest $request, Builder $query) {
        $query->whereIn('teams', ['editor', 'writer']);
    }),

The relatableQueryUsing method may also prove useful when you need to adjust the query based on the value of another field:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;
use Laravel\Nova\Fields\FormData;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->dependsOn('topic', function (BelongsTo $field, NovaRequest $request, FormData $formData) {
        if ($formData->topic === 'laravel-nova') {
            $field->relatableQueryUsing(function (NovaRequest $request, Builder $query) {
                $query->whereIn('email', ['[email protected]', '[email protected]']);
            });
        }
    }),

​

Limiting Relation Results

You can limit the number of results that are returned when searching the field by defining a relatableSearchResults property on the class of the resource that you are searching for:

/**
 * The number of results to display when searching for relatable resources without Scout.
 *
 * @var int|null
 */
public static $relatableSearchResults = 200;

​

Creating Inline Relations

For convenience, When BelongsTo or MorphTo relationship fields are shown on a resource create or update page, you may create the related resource inline via a modal window without leaving the creation / update page:

To enable this functionality, invoke the showCreateRelationButton method when defining the relationship field:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->showCreateRelationButton(),

You may also pass a closure to the showCreateRelationButton method to conditionally determine if inline resource creation should be enabled:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->showCreateRelationButton(function ($request) {
        //
    }),

You may also create related many-to-many relationships from the “attach” and “update attached” pages. To enable this feature, invoke the showCreateRelationButton when defining a BelongsToMany or MorphToMany relationship:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsToMany;

// ...

BelongsToMany::make('Roles')
    ->showCreateRelationButton(),

To hide the inline creation button, invoke the hideCreateRelationButton method when defining the relationship field:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->hideCreateRelationButton(),

The inline relation creation process will respect any authorization policies you have defined.

​

Inline Creation Modal Size

You may adjust the size of the modal using the modalSize method:

use Laravel\Nova\Fields\BelongsTo;

// ...

// Can be "sm", "md", "lg", "xl", "2xl", "3xl", "4xl", "5xl", "6xl", "7xl".
BelongsTo::make('User')
    ->showCreateRelationButton()
    ->modalSize('7xl'),