SIGNALS Documentation
/
No results found
API Reference
No results found

Seeders

What data gets seeded by default and how to run individual seeders.

Signals ships with four database seeders that populate your application with permissions, roles, a default store, and optional demo data. The default php artisan db:seed command runs the essential seeders automatically.

What Runs by Default

The DatabaseSeeder calls these seeders in order:

Seeder Purpose
PermissionSeeder Creates all system permissions for role-based access control
RoleSeeder Creates the four system roles with their permission sets

It also creates a test user (test@example.com) for development.

PermissionSeeder

Creates all permissions used by the role-based access control system. Permissions follow the resource.action naming convention and are grouped by domain:

Group Permissions
Settings settings.view, settings.manage
Users users.view, users.invite, users.edit, users.deactivate, users.activate, users.reset-password
Roles roles.view, roles.manage
Members members.view, members.create, members.edit, members.delete
Opportunities opportunities.view, opportunities.create, opportunities.edit, opportunities.delete
Invoices invoices.view, invoices.create, invoices.edit, invoices.delete
Products products.view, products.create, products.edit, products.delete
Stock stock.view, stock.adjust, stock.transfer
Reports reports.view, reports.export
System action-log.view, custom-fields.manage, static-data.manage, webhooks.manage

This seeder uses Permission::findOrCreate(), making it safe to run multiple times.

RoleSeeder

Creates the four system roles and assigns their default permission sets. Owner access is handled separately via the is_owner flag on users — not as a Spatie role.

Role Access Level
Admin All permissions
Manager All resource permissions (no settings, users, or roles management)
Operator Core operational permissions — opportunities, invoicing, stock, and read-only products/members
Viewer Read-only access to all resources

All roles are marked as system roles (is_system = true) and cannot be deleted through the UI. The RoleSeeder calls PermissionSeeder internally, so running it alone ensures permissions exist.

StoreSeeder

Creates a default store called "Main Warehouse" if no stores exist. This seeder is not included in the default DatabaseSeeder — run it separately if needed.

Note: The setup wizard (php artisan signals:setup) handles store creation interactively, so this seeder is primarily useful for automated deployments.

DemoDataSeeder

Creates three demo stores for testing and evaluation:

  • London Warehouse
  • Manchester Depot
  • Edinburgh Office

This seeder is not included in the default DatabaseSeeder. Run it separately when you want sample data for development or demos.

Running Seeders

# Run all default seeders (PermissionSeeder + RoleSeeder + test user)
php artisan db:seed

# Run a specific seeder
php artisan db:seed --class=StoreSeeder
php artisan db:seed --class=DemoDataSeeder

# Run in production (requires --force flag)
php artisan db:seed --force
php artisan db:seed --class=PermissionSeeder --force

You can also run seeders from the admin panel under Settings > System > Database Seeders, which shows the current status of each seeder and lets you run them individually.

Idempotency

All seeders are designed to be run multiple times safely:

  • PermissionSeeder uses Permission::findOrCreate() — existing permissions are not duplicated
  • RoleSeeder uses Role::findOrCreate() and syncPermissions() — roles are created or updated
  • StoreSeeder checks Store::query()->exists() — skips if any store already exists
  • DemoDataSeeder creates stores unconditionally — running it multiple times will create duplicates