State Provider

Creating State Providers

State Providers retrieve data for read operations (Get, GetCollection) — the read phase of an operation, the Query side of API Platform's CQRS-style split (a state-processor handles the Command/write side).

A provider runs when the operation's read flag is true. You normally leave it unset and API Platform resolves it from the request: read defaults to "the operation has URI variables, or the HTTP method is safe", and write (the processor) to "the method is not safe".

Override the flag to decouple the phase from the verb: read: false skips the built-in fetch on an item write (upsert), and write: true runs a processor on a Get (see state-processor). See operations → Read & write phases for the full read → deserialize → validate → write → serialize lifecycle.

Basic Structure

<?php
namespace App\State;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Operation;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\CollectionOperationInterface;
use ApiPlatform\State\ProviderInterface;

/**
 * @implements ProviderInterface<YourResource|null>
 */
final class YourResourceProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    public function provide(
        Operation $operation,
        array $uriVariables = [],
        array $context = []
    ): object|array|null {
        if ($operation instanceof CollectionOperationInterface) {
            return $this->repository->findAll();
        }

        return $this->repository->find($uriVariables['id']);
    }
}

Decorating Built-in Providers

Wrap the default provider to add custom logic (computed fields, enrichment):

<?php
namespace App\State;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Operation;
use ApiPlatform\State\ProviderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Attribute\Autowire;

final class EnrichedItemProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    public function __construct(
        #[Autowire(service: 'api_platform.doctrine.orm.state.item_provider')]
        private ProviderInterface $itemProvider,
    ) {}

    public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): ?object
    {
        $data = $this->itemProvider->provide($operation, $uriVariables, $context);

        if (null === $data) {
            return null; // API Platform returns 404 automatically
        }

        // Enrich with computed fields
        $data->computedScore = $this->computeScore($data);

        return $data;
    }
}

Doctrine service names

Laravel (Eloquent): ProviderInterface is identical and resources reference a provider by class-string (provider: YourProvider::class). There are no api_platform.doctrine.* service ids — the built-in Eloquent providers are bound in the container by their class name (ApiPlatform\Laravel\Eloquent\State\ItemProvider / …\State\CollectionProvider). To decorate one, type-hint that concrete class in your constructor (the container resolves it). Stable scalar/computed-field sorting uses stateOptions: new Options(modelClass: …) on the Eloquent Options and an OrderFilter parameter rather than repositoryMethod.

Enriching Paginated Collections

Iterate over paginated results to add computed fields:

use ApiPlatform\State\Pagination\PaginatorInterface;

final class MailboxListProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    public function __construct(
        #[Autowire(service: 'api_platform.doctrine_mongodb.odm.state.collection_provider')]
        private ProviderInterface $collectionProvider,
        private MailboxHelper $helper,
    ) {}

    public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): PaginatorInterface
    {
        $mailboxes = $this->collectionProvider->provide($operation, $uriVariables, $context);

        foreach ($mailboxes as $item) {
            $item->totalMessages = $this->helper->countMessages($item->getId());
        }

        return $mailboxes;
    }
}

Cross-Resource Providers (Returning a Different Type)

A provider can fetch one resource type and return another:

final class RawMessageProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    public function __construct(
        #[Autowire(service: 'api_platform.doctrine_mongodb.odm.state.item_provider')]
        private ProviderInterface $itemProvider,
        private RawMessageBuilderInterface $builder,
    ) {}

    public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): ?RawMessage
    {
        // Fetch the Document\Message using Doctrine
        $message = $this->itemProvider->provide($operation, $uriVariables, $context);
        if (!$message) {
            return null;
        }

        // Transform to a completely different API resource
        $raw = new RawMessage();
        $raw->id = $message->getId();
        $raw->content = $this->builder->build($message);
        return $raw;
    }
}

Provider Parameters

• $operation: Metadata about the operation (Get, GetCollection, etc.)
• $uriVariables: URI path variables (e.g., ['id' => '123', 'accountId' => '456'])
• $context: Additional context:
  • request: The Symfony HttpFoundation Request
  • resource_class: The API resource class
  • filters: Applied query parameter filters

Assigning to Resource

#[Get(provider: YourProvider::class)]
#[GetCollection(provider: YourCollectionProvider::class)]
class YourResource {}

Computed / Sortable Fields via a Repository Method (Doctrine)

When a field is a SQL aggregate that must also be sortable in the database, a plain provider can't help — sorting happens in the query. The cleanest way is to point the built-in Doctrine provider at a custom repository method that returns a QueryBuilder, via stateOptions (API Platform 4.4+). The provider runs your query builder, then layers pagination, filters and link handlers on top of it.

// Repository: return a QueryBuilder, not results
class CartRepository extends EntityRepository
{
    public function getCartsWithTotalQuantity(): QueryBuilder
    {
        return $this->createQueryBuilder('o')
            ->leftJoin('o.items', 'items')
            ->addSelect('COALESCE(SUM(items.quantity), 0) AS totalQuantity')
            ->addGroupBy('o.id');
    }
}

use ApiPlatform\Doctrine\Orm\State\Options;

#[ORM\Entity(repositoryClass: CartRepository::class)]
#[GetCollection(
    stateOptions: new Options(repositoryMethod: 'getCartsWithTotalQuantity'),
    processor: [self::class, 'process'],
    write: true,
    parameters: [
        'sort[:property]' => new QueryParameter(filter: new SortFilter(), properties: ['totalQuantity']),
    ],
)]
class Cart
{
    public int|string|null $totalQuantity;

    // A non-HIDDEN scalar addSelect makes rows arrive as [entity, 'totalQuantity' => N].
    // Flatten them back onto the entity with a processor:
    public static function process(mixed $data, Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): mixed
    {
        foreach ($data as &$value) {
            $cart = $value[0];
            $cart->totalQuantity = $value['totalQuantity'] ?? 0;
            $value = $cart;
        }

        return $data;
    }
}

Use a Doctrine collection extension (see securing-collections) instead when the query change must apply to every operation/query for the resource (e.g. multi-tenant isolation). repositoryMethod scopes one operation's base query; an extension mutates them all.

Per-Property Serialization Context

Embed the same related resource at different depths by switching the normalization group on one property with #[Context]:

use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Attribute\Context;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Attribute\Groups;

#[ApiResource(normalizationContext: ['groups' => ['initial']])]
class Order
{
    #[Groups(['initial'])]
    public ?Customer $customer = null;

    #[Groups(['initial'])]
    #[Context(['normalization' => ['groups' => ['summary']]])]
    public ?Customer $billedTo = null; // serialized with the 'summary' group only
}

Best Practices

1. Return null for missing items — API Platform handles the 404
2. Use CollectionOperationInterface to distinguish collection vs item
3. When decorating, always delegate to the built-in provider first
4. For computed fields on collections, iterate over the paginator (it's lazy)
5. For sortable computed fields, use stateOptions(repositoryMethod:) — not a provider