Managing Temporal Business Logic with Laravel Rulebook

When business rules change on a specific date—such as tax rate increases, holiday promotional discounts, or new compliance regulations—controllers often become cluttered with messy date comparisons:

// The messy approach:
if (now()->between($blackFridayStart, $blackFridayEnd)) {
    $discount = 0.25;
} elseif (now()->isAfter($q4Cutoff)) {
    $discount = 0.15;
}

The Rulebook Architecture

Laravel Rulebook introduces a clean, declarative approach to time-sensitive policy modeling:

namespace App\Rules\Pricing;

use LaravelRulebook\Rule;

class HolidayDiscountRule extends Rule
{
    public function effectiveDate(): string
    {
        return '2026-11-25 to 2026-12-02';
    }

    public function apply($cart): void
    {
        $cart->discountPercentage = 25;
    }
}

Rulebook allows querying and testing rules against past, present, or future dates without touching system clocks.