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Factories

Publish model factories into the application's factories directory — and why publishing is the only option Laravel leaves.

On this page 5 
public function hasFactories(
    array|string|null $factoryFiles = null,
    string $directory = '../database/factories',
): static

Added in 2.4.0. Like seeders, factories are publish-only.

src/BlogServiceProvider.phpphp
$packager
    ->name('Blog')
    ->hasFactories();
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=blog::factories

Files land flat in database/factories/, which is where the application's Database\Factories namespace resolves:

database/factories/BlogPostFactory.php

Why there is no "load factories" option

Laravel removed loadFactoriesFrom() in version 8, when factories became classes resolved by convention rather than files scanned from a directory. There is no framework hook left for a package to say "my factories live here" — so the toolkit does not pretend to offer one.

If you want your factories usable without the consumer publishing them, point at them from the model, which is the mechanism Laravel does still provide:

src/Models/Post.phpphp
namespace Acme\Blog\Models;
 
use Acme\Blog\Database\Factories\PostFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
 
class Post extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;
 
    protected static function newFactory(): PostFactory 
    {                                                   
        return PostFactory::new();                      
    }                                                   
}
src/Database/Factories/PostFactory.phpphp
namespace Acme\Blog\Database\Factories;
 
use Acme\Blog\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;
 
class PostFactory extends Factory
{
    protected $model = Post::class;
 
    public function definition(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => $this->faker->sentence(),
            'slug' => $this->faker->unique()->slug(),
            'body' => $this->faker->paragraphs(3, true),
            'published_at' => null,
        ];
    }
 
    public function published(): static
    {
        return $this->state(fn () => ['published_at' => now()]);
    }
}

Now Post::factory()->published()->create() works in the consumer's tests with nothing published, because the factory lives under your PSR-4 prefix and the model resolves it directly.

The two approaches answer different questions, and a package can do both:

hasFactories() newFactory()
Consumer must publish yes no
Consumer can edit the definition yes only by extending
Namespace Database\Factories your own
Useful for seeding demo data, a starting point to customise tests against your models

Writing a publishable factory

A factory intended for publishing declares the application's namespace:

database/factories/BlogPostFactory.phpphp
namespace Database\Factories;
 
use Acme\Blog\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;
 
class BlogPostFactory extends Factory
{
    protected $model = Post::class;
 
    public function definition(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => fake()->sentence(),
            'slug' => fake()->unique()->slug(),
            'body' => fake()->paragraphs(4, true),
            'published_at' => fake()->boolean(70) ? fake()->dateTimeThisYear() : null,
        ];
    }
}

Prefix the class name. database/factories/ belongs to the application, and PostFactory is a name somebody else will want.

Naming specific files 

$packager->hasFactories('BlogPostFactory.php');
$packager->hasFactories(['BlogPostFactory.php', 'BlogCommentFactory.php']);
$packager->hasFactories(directory: '../database/factory-stubs');

In the install command 

use NyonCode\LaravelPackageToolkit\Commands\InstallCommand;
 
$packager->hasInstallCommand(function (InstallCommand $command) {
    $command
        ->publishMigrations()
        ->publishFactories()
        ->publishSeeders();
});

Factories are usually only wanted in development, which the installer can express:

$packager->hasInstallCommand(function (InstallCommand $command) {
    $command
        ->publishConfig()
        ->publishMigrations()
        ->publishForLocal('factories', 'seeders'); 
});

Introspection 

$packager->isFactorable();  // bool
$packager->factoryFiles();  // Support\SplFileInfo[]