Extending the Admin Panel

Every screen, navigation item, table, and dashboard widget in Lunar’s admin panel is exposed to extension through a Section — a small class of hook methods that a service provider registers before the panel processes it at boot.

Sections

A Section (Lunar\Panel\Sections\Section) is an area of the panel: it owns a key, contributes navigation, and can register routes, table extensions, page actions, slots, dashboard widgets, and more. Every first-party area of the panel — Sales, Catalog, Settings’ sub-sections — is a Section, and an add-on registers its own the same way. A SectionExtension (Lunar\Panel\Sections\SectionExtension) grafts onto a section owned by someone else instead of standing alone. It supports the same hooks as Section, minus key()/label(), plus one required method:

use Lunar\Panel\Sections\SectionExtension;

class SalesExtension extends SectionExtension
{
    public function extends(): string
    {
        return 'sales';
    }

    // ...any of the Section hooks
}

Use a Section when the add-on stands alone (its own navigation group, its own pages). Use a SectionExtension when it’s conceptually part of an existing area — extra navigation under Sales, say. An extends() key that matches no registered section logs a warning and the extension is skipped, so load order between add-ons never throws.

Registering a section

use Lunar\Panel\Facades\Panel;

Panel::section(new MySection);          // an area the add-on owns
Panel::extendSection(new MyExtension);  // grafted onto someone else's section

Register sections and extensions inside a service provider’s boot() method. Sections are processed once during the application’s own boot, and a registration arriving after that point is silently ignored — Lunar\Panel\PanelManager logs a warning naming the late class, but nothing throws.

The hook table

Every Section and SectionExtension implements the same set of hooks, each returning an empty default so overriding one is opt-in.

Hook	What it registers
`key()`	The section’s stable identifier (required on `Section`; a `SectionExtension` names its target section with `extends()` instead).
`label()`	The section’s display label; defaults to `ucfirst($this->key())`.
`navigation(NavigationRegistry $registry)`	Sidebar groups and items — label, icon, route, permission handle, priority or `Position`.
`settingsNavigation(NavigationRegistry $registry)`	Items in the Settings sidebar, using the same registry shape.
`routes(): ?Closure`	Routes, run inside the panel’s own route group so the configured prefix, guard, and middleware apply automatically. Gate individual routes with `can:` middleware.
`slots(SlotRegistry $registry)`	Injects a Vue component into a named zone on a page owned by another section.
`tableExtensions(): array`	Extra `TableColumn`s, `TableFilter`s, `TableAction`s, and `TableBulkAction`s for a table id, e.g. `['customers.index' => MyTableExtension::class]`.
`pageActions(): array`	`PageAction` classes for a page’s header ellipsis, keyed by page id.
`draftables(): array`	`DraftableResource` definitions describing which fields an edit form drafts and how a draft commits.
`discountTypeForms(): array`	Panel forms for discount types this section owns, keyed by the discount type class.
`searchSources(): array`	Sources the global search palette can find records in.
`searchCommands(): array`	Static verbs the global search palette offers alongside record results.
`widgets(): array`	Dashboard `Widget` classes.
`vite(): array\|string\|null`	The compiled JS module config for this section’s own bundle.
`langNamespaces(): array`	Laravel translator namespaces whose lang groups the panel’s translations endpoint serves to the frontend.

Section::draftables(), discountTypeForms(), searchSources(), searchCommands(), and widgets() are also available on SectionExtension.

Non-section escape hatches

Everything a Section hook does is a thin wrapper around a method on Lunar\Panel\PanelManager, fronted by the Panel facade. Code that doesn’t fit the shape of an area — a single table extension registered from a package’s own bootstrapping, say — can call these directly instead of writing a Section:

Method	Purpose
`Panel::extendTable($tableId, $extensionClass)`	Add a `TableExtension` to a table id without a `Section`.
`Panel::addPageAction($pageId, $actionClass)`	Add a `PageAction` to a page’s header.
`Panel::registerRoutes($callback)`	Register routes directly, run inside the panel’s route group.
`Panel::slots()`	Get the `SlotRegistry` to add a `Slot` directly.
`Panel::navigation()` / `Panel::settingsNavigation()`	Get the `NavigationRegistry` directly.
`Panel::translations(...$namespaces)`	Opt lang namespaces into the frontend translations endpoint.
`Panel::vite($name, $config)`	Register a compiled JS module.
`Panel::widget($widgetClass)`	Add a dashboard widget.

Sections are the organized way of calling these; reach for the escape hatch only when a full Section class would be pure ceremony.

Where to go next

Building an add-on

Scaffold a distributable Composer + npm package, from the service provider through compiling and shipping the JS bundle.

Pages and navigation

Register routes, build an Inertia page with the standard scaffolding, and add navigation and settings-navigation entries.

Ordering with Position

Anchor navigation items, table columns, and actions relative to each other with Lunar\Panel\Support\Position.

​Sections

​Registering a section

​The hook table

​Non-section escape hatches

​Where to go next

Building an add-on

Pages and navigation

Ordering with Position

Sections

Registering a section

The hook table

Non-section escape hatches

Where to go next