---
title: "Core concepts — Onboarding for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "Flows, steps, subjects and the manager — how progress is derived live from your data instead of being stored."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/onboarding-for-laravel/core-concepts
language: en
---

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[Onboarding for Laravel](https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/onboarding-for-laravel.md)

# Core concepts

Onboarding is described as flows of ordered steps. Each step decides for itself whether it is complete — or excluded — by looking at a subject, so progress is always derived from your current data and never stored.

- OnboardingManager — the central store of named flows, the resolver and the persistence store. Resolved as a singleton and reachable through the Onboarding facade.
- Flow — a named, ordered set of steps. Reports overall progress, the current step, sections and a JSON-ready summary.
- Step — a single onboarding task. Its completion and exclusion are decided by closures or declarative helpers that receive the subject.
- GetsOnboarded — a trait for Eloquent models that resolves the model’s flow and binds the model to it.
- Subject — what a flow is evaluated against: an Eloquent Model or any Authenticatable. Until one is bound with for(), the authenticated user is used.

## At a glance

```php
use RoundlyConsulting\Onboarding\Facades\Onboarding;
use RoundlyConsulting\Onboarding\Flow;
use RoundlyConsulting\Onboarding\Step;

// Register once (e.g. in a service provider's boot()).
Onboarding::register(Flow::make('Profile Onboarding')->of([
    Step::make('Upload photo')->key('photo')->cta('Upload now')
        ->route('profile.photo')
        ->completeWhenFilled('avatar_path'),
    Step::make('Add a bio')->key('bio')->optional()
        ->completeWhenFilled('bio'),
]));

// Read live progress for any subject.
$flow = Onboarding::for($user);       // a copy bound to $user — or $user->onboarding()
$flow?->percentageCompleted();        // float
$flow?->currentStep();                // ?Step to resume on
$flow?->toArray();                    // JSON-ready summary for a frontend
```

## Stateless by design

Nothing is persisted — no tables, no flags, no cached progress. Change a step’s rule and every user’s progress reflects it on the next read. Reads never dispatch events either; only an explicit record() call does. If you do want to remember dismissals or completion timestamps, plug in your own OnboardingStore — see Persistence store.

## Defaults worth knowing

- A step with no completion rule is complete; a step with no exclusion rule is never excluded.
- An empty flow counts as complete: isCompleted() is true and percentageCompleted() is 100.0.
- Rules receive the bound subject or null, so write closures null-safe — ?User $user and $user?->… — as every example here does.
- Optional steps count toward percentageCompleted() but never block isCompleted().

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