Models and Conventions

Models, Tables, and Naming Conventions

Eloquent derives a model's table and keys from its class name, and you override only what differs:

Eloquent naming conventions and their overrides
Aspect	Convention	Laravel 13 2,157 override
Table	OrderItem: order_items	#[Table('name')]
Primary key	auto-increment id	#[Table(key: 'sku')]
Timestamps	created_at, updated_at	#[WithoutTimestamps]
Foreign key	order_item_id	relation argument

The documentation now leads with these class attributes; the older properties ($table, $primaryKey, $keyType, $incrementing, $timestamps) still work and fill most existing code. Asking the model is the quickest check:

What Eloquent infers from two class namesSQL

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Attributes\Table;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class OrderItem extends Model {}
#[Table('order_items', timestamps: false)]
class LineItem extends Model {}
$m = new OrderItem;
echo $m->getTable(), ' ', $m->getKeyName(), ' ', $m->getForeignKey(), "\n";
echo (new LineItem)->getTable(), ' ', json_encode((new LineItem)->usesTimestamps()), "\n";

Output

order_items id order_item_id
order_items false

No query ran: inference is string work, so a wrong guess surfaces only at the first query. That table also shows the limit: its key is the pair (order_id, product_id), and Eloquent has no composite keys, so treat it as a pivot (Many to Many) or give it a surrogate id.

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Models and Conventions