Real-time — Laravel Reverb

WebSocket-based real-time notifications using Laravel Reverb. Replaces polling with push events for matter assignments, invoice payments, and appointment reminders.

---

What Uses Real-time

Event	Triggered by	Notified users
Matter assigned	MatterAttorney created	Assigned lawyer
Invoice paid	Payment created	Billing admin + matter lead
Appointment reminder	Scheduled job (1hr before)	All attendees
Document uploaded	ProcessDocumentJob complete	Matter team
Comment added	Comment created	Matter team

---

Setup

composer require laravel/reverb
php artisan reverb:install
php artisan reverb:start

Reverb runs as a separate long-running process but uses the same Laravel application code.

---

Broadcasting a Notification

// app/Notifications/MatterAssignedNotification.php
class MatterAssignedNotification extends Notification implements ShouldBroadcast
{
    public function broadcastOn(): array
    {
        return [new PrivateChannel("user.{$this->userId}")];
    }

    public function broadcastAs(): string
    {
        return 'matter.assigned';
    }
}

---

Filament Integration

Filament's DatabaseNotification component polls for unread notifications by default. With Reverb, this is replaced by a WebSocket listener that pushes the unread count to the panel in real time — no polling overhead.

---

Authentication

Private channels require authentication. The channel auth endpoint is provided by Laravel's broadcasting system:

// routes/channels.php
Broadcast::channel('user.{userId}', function (User $user, int $userId) {
    return $user->id === $userId;
});