When you need something in Laravel, do you install a package, ask your coding agent to pick one, or just build it yourself?
Curious how devs are making that call these days.
commit ca6bb17
How simple is it? How risky is it? Do we want to maintain it ourselves? Ofc with AI the equation to all these changed.
Pretty standard library need? Grab a package. Mild customization or some niche config? Just build it myself now.
Rule of thumb:
If it's a battle-tested problem (auth, payments, permissions) → Spatie / first-party package.
If it's domain logic or a tiny utility → ask Cursor/Claude to generate it so I avoid bloated dependencies.
"Just enough code to own, not enough to maintain someone else’s…
I'm sorry I had to answer this way but... it depends.
I always try to build what I need first, but there are times when what I need has been solved by a very good package.
Step one:
composer require spatie/whatever-i-need.
Step two, if that fails: accept that I am now the package.