Validation Rule Reference

This page is a lookup table for built-in string rules. It records the accepted-value type the extension emits after successful validation.

Presence, exclusion, and nested reconstruction are separate from the value type. See Presence and Output Projection. Fluent objects are in Rule Builders. Shared conservative fallbacks are in Static Resolvability. The inventory and status counts are in Validation Rule Coverage.

int and bool aliases normalize to integer and boolean before type resolution, matching Laravel’s ValidationRuleParser::normalizeRule().

Rule-name whitespace follows the selected Laravel version. Internal tabs and additional Unicode whitespace become word separators in Laravel 11.45.2 and 12.21.0. Laravel 12.0–12.20 retains the earlier behavior. From 13.9.0, U+180E is also a separator. Parameters retain their original whitespace.

Without a known framework version, names affected by these differences are opaque. This also applies to automatically detected standalone Validation components, whose Support dependency can have a different version. An explicit laravelVersion selects the corresponding normalization behavior. Configured custom-rule names use the same normalization. Ambiguous names require a known framework version; empty names and collisions with built-in rules or other custom names are rejected.

Before a named rule exists in the detected Laravel version, the same spelling may be an application alias. Inference then stays mixed.

Optional non-implicit rules still admit a blank string unless required, present, HTTP-normalization, or another implicit rule prevents that bypass.

Exact accepted sets

Numeric in parameters can narrow representable native integers to literals. They retain broad float, numeric-string, and Stringable branches. A float parameter also retains broad int because PHP’s precision can change the serialized spelling.

Native strings

current_password contributes mixed: Laravel delegates acceptance to the configured hasher and preserves the original native value. Add string to require a native string. See the runtime example.

Coercive text

These rules admit values Laravel stringifies for the check, then preserve the original native value.

Dates

These rules do not parse input into a canonical date object. For example, date_format:Y-m-d narrows to non-empty-string, while date_format:Ymd and a format list containing Ymd retain native numerics because Laravel can accept and preserve them. Unknown formats remain conservative.

Numbers

Digit-count rules keep the broader family when the Laravel version is unknown or unsupported. That family does not refine booleans or null by digit bounds. The version boundaries concern the predicates themselves: optional blank strings and nullable null values can still bypass them after the native-type guards were introduced.

PHPStan cannot express “integral floats only.” The non-strict numeric unions are therefore broader than Laravel’s successful subset and still sound.

Arrays

Bare array and, from Laravel 11.23, literal list also decide nested reconstruction. See Presence and Output Projection.

Files

Laravel validates and preserves the original file. It does not construct a separate dimensions or MIME value.

Enum

A string enum rule is conservative unless the enum class is recovered from a fresh Enum builder. The builder includes statically visible cases, backing values, and weakly coerced native values Laravel can accept and preserve.

Neutral rules

These names are recognized. They contribute no local accepted-value type. Adjacent value rules remain responsible for the native family.

Neutral does not mean ignored. required, present, missing, nullable, sometimes, and exclude* have tree-level handling. min can refine an already known string or collection to its non-empty form when the parameter is definitely positive.

not_in is type-neutral because PHPStan has no useful general complement for Laravel’s loose comparison. A fresh Rule::notIn() builder is therefore not a value-narrowing rule.

Conservative mixed fallbacks

These reserved names have no built-in accepted-value model:

missing_with, missing_with_all, present_with, present_with_all, required_if_accepted, required_if_declined, prohibited_if_accepted, prohibited_if_declined.

They remain optional or mixed rather than inventing a correlated union over another field.

Adjacent-rule refinement

Adding a native-family rule intersects the unions:

$validated = Validator::make($input, [
    'age' => 'required|integer|string',
])->validated();

\PHPStan\dumpType($validated);
// array{age: numeric-string}