Log a new kind of activity

There's no enum, no registration step, no frontend map to update — logging a new kind of activity is a single method call, wherever the action already happens in a Service.

The pattern

Every existing call site follows the same shape — write it in the Service, right after (or as part of) the actual change, with a human-readable sentence describing what just happened:

// app/Services/ProjectMemberService.php
public function updateRole(Project $project, User $member, RoleType $newRole): void
{
    $this->assertIsMember($project, $member);
    $this->assertNotOwner($project, $member, 'role', "The project owner's role cannot be changed.");

    $this->projectMemberRepository->updateRole($project, $member->id, $newRole);
    $this->roleService->syncSystemRoleForMember($project, $member->id, $newRole);
    $this->activityLogService->log($project->id, "Changed $member->name's role to $newRole->value");
}

Worked example: SavedFilterController::store() is the one write path in the app that doesn't log anything — it's also the one Controller that bypasses the Service layer entirely (see ../architecture/02-backend-layered-architecture.md), creating the SavedFilter model directly. Adding a log line here means introducing the missing Service first, then logging inside it — the two are naturally the same change:

// app/Http/Controllers/SavedFilterController.php
public function store(Request $request, SavedFilterService $savedFilterService): RedirectResponse
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        'project_id' => 'required|exists:projects,id',
        'name' => 'required|string|max:20',
        'context' => 'required|string',
        'query_params' => 'required|array',
    ]);

    $project = Project::findOrFail($validated['project_id']);
    $this->authorize('view', $project);

    $savedFilterService->create($project, $validated);

    return redirect()->back()->with('success', 'Saved filters has been created successfully.');
}

// app/Services/SavedFilterService.php (new file)
namespace App\Services;

use App\Models\Project;
use App\Models\SavedFilter;

class SavedFilterService
{
    public function __construct(
        protected ActivityLogService $activityLogService
    ) {}

    public function create(Project $project, array $data): SavedFilter
    {
        $filter = SavedFilter::create($data);

        $this->activityLogService->log($project->id, "Saved a new filter: \"{$filter->name}\"");

        return $filter;
    }
}

See ../saved-filters/README.md for the rest of what a proper Service extraction for this Controller would cover beyond just the log line.

Conventions to follow

• Inject ActivityLogService into the Service's constructor (it's already there in almost every Service — RoleService, ProjectMemberService, IssueService, ProjectInvitationService, NotificationSettingService, and more, all take it).
• Write a complete, past-tense sentence naming the specific thing that changed, including a real name/value where relevant — "Changed Jane's role to admin," not "Role updated." The body is the entire record; there's no structured data alongside it to reconstruct context from later.
• $projectId is null for account-level activity (not tied to any project) — see NotificationSettingService::updateSettings()'s $this->activityLogService->log(null, 'Updated notification settings', $userId); for the shape.
• Only pass $userId explicitly when the actor isn't the authenticated user — e.g. ProjectInvitationService::revoke() logs against auth()->id() implicitly, while a system-triggered action acting on someone else's behalf would need to pass their id explicitly. Every existing call site omits it unless there's a specific reason not to rely on the default.

Tests

Whatever test already covers the Service method you added the log line to — add (or extend) an assertion like:

$this->assertDatabaseHas('activity_logs', [
    'project_id' => $project->id,
    'body' => 'Saved a new filter: "My filter"',
]);

mirroring the exact pattern tests/Feature/ProjectMemberServiceTest.php's 'it can transfer ownership to another member and demotes the previous owner to admin' test already uses. Don't add a new, dedicated ActivityLogServiceTest case for this — the log line is one assertion inside the test for the actual feature, not a feature of its own. For the SavedFilterService example above specifically, this assertion belongs in a new tests/Feature/SavedFilterServiceTest.php — tests/Feature/SavedFilterControllerTest.php already exists and covers the HTTP layer, but there's no dedicated Service-level test yet since there's no Service yet either (see ../saved-filters/README.md).