Feature Request: Built-in JSON Response Handling for Validation Errors in API Projects

[abdulaziz1999]

Laravel Version

12

PHP Version

8.4

Database Driver & Version

Mysql 8

Description

Description
Currently, when using Laravel for API development, the framework doesn't automatically return JSON responses for validation errors when using $request->validate(). Developers need to create middleware like ForceJsonResponse to set the Accept header to application/json manually.

This creates additional overhead and is not intuitive for developers building API-focused applications with Laravel.

Problem Example
Without custom middleware, validation errors return HTML responses instead of JSON:

php
// In controller
public function store(Request $request)
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        'email' => 'required|email',
        'password' => 'required|min:8',
    ]);
    
    // ... logic
}

When validation fails, API clients receive HTML instead of JSON, breaking the expected API response format.

Steps To Reproduce

Current Workaround
Developers must create custom middleware:

php
class ForceJsonResponse
{
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        $request->headers->set('Accept', 'application/json');
        return $next($request);
    }
}

Proposed Solution
Automatic JSON Detection: Laravel could automatically detect API requests (based on route prefixes, Accept headers, or config setting)

Configuration Option: Add config/app.php option like 'force_json_for_api' => true

Route-based Detection: Automatically apply JSON responses for routes in api.php

Middleware Package: Include optional built-in middleware for this purpose

Benefits
Better developer experience for API projects

Consistent response format out-of-the-box

Reduced boilerplate code

Standardized API behavior

Similar Implementations
Other frameworks like Symfony and Express.js handle this more elegantly

Laravel Sanctum/Sail already provide API-specific tooling

Additional Context
This would be especially valuable given Laravel's growing popularity as an API backend for:

Mobile applications

SPAs (Vue/React)

Microservices architectures

Third-party integrations

Tags: feature-request, api, validation, json-response

Priority: Medium-High (improves developer experience for API projects)

[macropay-solutions]

From our knowledge if you send accept application/json you get a json on validation exception.

[mbabker]

From our knowledge if you send accept application/json you get a json on validation exception.

It does. In fact, the exception handler has specific handling for a validation exception.

The fact this ForceJsonResponse middleware is needed implies that downstream consumers to these applications are not sending the proper request headers, and they are receiving the content type they are asking for by not requesting the right content type (since browsers and platforms like Symfony's HttpFoundation (which Laravel's request builds on) default to HTML).