Your Laravel Models Aren’t the Problem. Hidden Workflows Are.
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Laravel applications often degrade in maintainability not from one bad decision but from many small ones — particularly when Eloquent models accumulate workflow logic alongside state. The key distinction is between methods that describe an object's state (appropriate for models) versus methods that coordinate application-wide work like HTTP calls, notifications, and database transactions (which belong in dedicated workflow classes). A focused action class like ShipOrder makes dependencies explicit, simplifies testing, and keeps models coherent. The post also warns against simply migrating bloat from fat models to fat actions — workflow classes should coordinate collaborators, not implement every detail themselves. The guiding rule: ask whether a method describes the object or coordinates the application.
