Accessors allow you to transform the value of an Eloquent attribute when it is accessed. You can define an accessor by creating a protected method on the model to represent the accessible attribute. This method name should correspond to the "camel case" representation of the true underlying model attribute / database column

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\Attribute;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    /**
     * Get the user's first name.
     */
    protected function firstName(): Attribute
    {
        return Attribute::make(
            get: fn (string $value) => ucfirst($value),
        );
    }
}

You can access the value of the accessor by simply accessing the first_name attribute on a model instance:

use App\Models\User;

$user = User::find(1);

$firstName = $user->first_name;

Mutators allow you to transform an Eloquent attribute value when it is set. You can create a mutator by providing the set argument when defining your attribute.

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Casts\Attribute;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{
    /**
     * Interact with the user's first name.
     */
    protected function firstName(): Attribute
    {
        return Attribute::make(
            get: fn (string $value) => ucfirst($value),
            set: fn (string $value) => strtolower($value),
        );
    }
}

Allows you to manipulate the value and return the manipulated value.

use App\Models\User;

$user = User::find(1);

$user->first_name = 'Sally';

The mutator will apply the strtolower function to the first_name and set its resulting value in the model's internal $attributes array.