How can I make the package config merge it's non-existing keys into the app config file in laravel 7.x?

Question

I'm developing some packages that make my app more modular and allow the user to enable/disable them on the fly, or install additional packages when needed.

Some of these packages will require the user to configure certain properties (such as api-keys), for this reason I'd like the packages to write their config keys & values to the <app-root>/config/packages.php file (if the keys don't exist yet).

From what I understand from the laravel documentation (albeit a bit vague) I can use either:

$this->mergeConfigFrom(__DIR__.'/config/config.php', 'packages');

or

$this->publishes([
    __DIR__.'/config/config.php' => config_path('packages.php')
]);

in the register() method of my package ServiceProvider class.

Additionally I also added an echo "called"; to the register() method so I can check if the code is actually executed.

Next I run compose dump-autoload , I see called in the log output, but when I check the <app-root>/config/packages.php file it still has the empty array.

Using php artisan config:clear and then running compose dump-autoload once more doesn't make a difference either.

How can I make the package config merge it's non-existing keys into the <app-root>/config/packages.php file?

This is an example of my package config file:

<?php

return [
    'shoutzor' => [
        'acoustid' => [
            'apikey'  => env('SHOUTZOR_ACOUSTID_APIKEY', '')
        ]
    ]
];

and my <app-root>/config/packages.php file contains:

<?php

return [];

Answer 1

You (or the user) need to run the command php artisan vendor:publish before the package's configuration file will be published (copied in the config folder, or the folder specified)

From the documentation

Now, when users of your package execute Laravel's vendor:publish command, your file will be copied to the specified publish location.

If you want to publish a specific package vendor files, you will just need to pass the package service provider as option to the command:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Your\Package\ServiceProvider"

Important If the files to publish already exist in the destination folder, you will need to run the command with the --force option:

php artisan vendor:publish --force