A new audit trail plugin for Laravel's Filament framework promises to solve a familiar problem: tracking database changes without staring at raw JSON.
Chronos, now at v1.7.0, displays database mutations as color-coded diffs in a slide-over UI. Created (green), updated (blue), and deleted (red) changes appear side-by-side with before/after values. The plugin works with Filament v4 and v5.
The setup requires two steps: adding a trait to your Eloquent model and dropping an action into your Filament resource. No additional configuration files or custom pages, which addresses a common complaint about existing solutions like z3d0x/filament-activity-log and tomatophp/filament-logger.
What's notable here is the zero-build approach. Most Filament plugins with custom UI require Tailwind JIT configuration and npm builds. Chronos sidesteps this by using native Filament classes and CSS variables, automatically inheriting your panel's color scheme and dark mode settings.
The plugin sits in a crowded space. Filament's ecosystem includes at least five audit packages, most wrapping Spatie's Activitylog (which has logged over 10 million installs historically) or Owen-it's Laravel Auditing. Tapp Network's Laravel Auditing plugin recently added Filament v5 support. Crescent Purchasing and others offer relation manager approaches that some developers find simpler than dedicated audit UIs.
The visual diff approach is an answer to developer frustration with table-based previews, though the market hasn't quantified how many shops actually need this. In regulated sectors (fintech, e-commerce, government), audit trails are compliance requirements, not nice-to-haves. The question is whether visual diffs justify adding another dependency versus extending existing tools.
The plugin captures user data, IP addresses, and timestamps automatically. It handles polymorphic relationships, tracking changes across any Eloquent model.
No download numbers or adoption metrics available yet. The developer is positioning it for CRMs, ERPs, and data-sensitive applications. Worth watching whether the zero-build promise holds as Filament updates, or if the next Tailwind version breaks the CSS variable approach.