Route::query() and Model defaults() in Laravel 13.35

Laravel 13.35 brings two highly requested quality-of-life enhancements for routing and Eloquent models.

Declarative Model Defaults

Rather than declaring an $attributes array or setting values inside model lifecycle hooks, you can now define default attribute states declaratively:

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Invoice extends Model
{
    protected function defaults(): array
    {
        return [
            'status'   => 'draft',
            'currency' => 'USD',
            'tax_rate' => 0.15,
        ];
    }
}

Route Query String Helper

Accessing sanitized query parameters directly within route closures is now cleaner than ever with Route::query() helpers, avoiding unnecessary dependency injection when handling lightweight redirects.