Laravel Truss 1.5: the schema doctor

[albertoarena]

Truss 1.5 is out, and it brings the biggest addition since the diagram itself: the schema doctor.

Truss already shows you your database structure. The doctor tells you what looks wrong with it, reading structure alone: no row data, no AI, no query stats.

What it catches

Run it and it flags problems visible from structure alone:

• Tables with no primary key
• Foreign keys with no supporting index
• Duplicate or redundant indexes
• Foreign keys whose type does not match the key they reference
• Money-looking columns stored as float
• Pivots without a unique key, unindexed deleted_at, and more

Thirteen rules across integrity, index, and type categories, each with a stable code (like TRUSS-IDX-001) so you can look it up, silence it, or change its severity.

In the terminal and CI

php artisan truss:doctor
php artisan truss:doctor --preset=strict --fail-on=warning
php artisan truss:doctor --format=json

It exits non-zero when a finding is at or above your fail level, so a migration that introduces a problem fails the build. Deterministic and structure-only, safe for CI and commit hooks.

Rules are engine-aware where it matters: an unindexed foreign key is an error on PostgreSQL and SQLite, and only info on MySQL and MariaDB, which auto-index them.

In the dashboard

The same findings appear in the dashboard as the Health panel (the heart in the toolbar). Tables with a problem are flagged right on the diagram, the offending column is marked inline, and heuristic (lower-confidence) findings are marked as such. Same feature, same findings, two front ends.

Try it

The live demo has it running. Open the Health panel and you will see a handful of foreign keys flagged for a missing index.

• Live demo: https://trussphp.com/demo/
• Guide (presets, confidence, and every rule code): https://trussphp.com/guides/schema-doctor/
• Release notes: https://github.com/albertoarena/laravel-truss/releases/tag/v1.5.0

Update with composer update albertoarena/laravel-truss, then run php artisan truss:doctor.

Feedback welcome

This is Phase 1: the engine and thirteen rules. Suppression files, more rules, and CI formatters are on the roadmap. If a rule feels too noisy, too quiet, or you want a check that is not there yet, reply here. I would love to hear what you run it against.