README

Protect your Laravel testing features before they become public.

LaraShield is a lightweight security gateway for Laravel applications that helps developers protect unfinished features, private dashboards, testing pages, and sensitive endpoints when running applications on public staging or development servers.

Instead of exposing internal features while testing, LaraShield adds a simple login gate in front of selected paths.

The Problem

During development, teams often deploy staging environments publicly for testing.

This can expose:

• Unfinished features
• Internal dashboards
• Debug pages
• Experimental functionality
• Sensitive testing endpoints

LaraShield provides a simple solution: protect these areas behind an independent developer login.

How It Works

Install LaraShield:

composer require cystorm/larashield

Run the installation command:

php artisan larashield:install

After installation, LaraShield creates an initial developer account.

The developer logs in to the LaraShield dashboard and defines which paths should be protected.

Example:

/admin/testing
/beta-feature
/new-payment-flow

Now any request to these paths will require LaraShield authentication.

Flow:

User Request
      |
      v
  LaraShield Check
      |
      +---- Authenticated
      |          |
      |          v
      |     Application Feature
      |
      +---- Not Authenticated
                 |
                 v
            LaraShield Login

Use Cases

LaraShield is useful for:

• Testing new features on public staging servers
• Protecting internal tools
• Sharing unfinished work with a team
• Preventing accidental data exposure during development
• Adding temporary access control without modifying application code

Features

• Independent authentication gateway
• Protect routes without changing your existing Laravel auth
• Developer-friendly dashboard
• Configurable protected paths
• Session-based access control
• Redirect users back after successful login
• Simple installation process

Example

Before LaraShield:

https://staging.example.com/new-feature

Anyone can access the feature.

After LaraShield:

https://staging.example.com/new-feature

        |
        v

LaraShield Login

        |
        v

Feature Access

What LaraShield Is Not

LaraShield is not intended to replace:

• Laravel authentication systems
• API authentication solutions
• User management systems

It is a protection layer designed for developers who need temporary access control for testing and private features.

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.1
• Laravel 10.x
• Laravel 11.x

Roadmap

Future versions may include:

• API endpoint protection
• Access logs
• Team management
• Advanced security policies
• Two-factor authentication

License

MIT License

Author

Mohamed Selim

GitHub: https://github.com/selimwdev