API Resource Issue

My guess is that somewhere in the stack, there's a protection to avoid calling toArray on a null resource to avoid some Trying to get property 'property_name' of non-object warnings/errors. Have you tried giving a new model as a fallback?

'contact' => new PublicContactResource($this->contact ?? new Contact)

Sorry, very much appreciate your help, I just do not understand what your solution suggestion is?

I tried to implanted a wacky workaround with something like this inside the PublicContact Resource

if(!$profile->contact){
      \Log::info('******** HELLO *********');
      return [
        'type' => 'contact',
        'meta' => [
          'name' => $profile->name
        ],
        'attributes' => [
        ...... faked empty array of attributes
        ]
      ];
    }

But it still never gets this far. Hello never shows up

Calling it like:

new PublicContactResource($this->contact);

Just never hits the actual destination. Because there is no $this->contact it just returns nothing?

I just set it as your advise:

'contact' => new PublicContactResource($this->contact ?? new Contact),

And still its giving errors

message: "Trying to get property 'description' of non-object"

I stripped everything out to bare bones:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Resources\Profile\Contacts;

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;

class PublicContactResource extends JsonResource
{
  /**
   * Transform the resource into an array.
   *
   * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
   * @return array
   */
  public function toArray($request)
  {
    $profile = \Route::current()->parameter('profile');

    return [
      'type' => 'contact',
      'meta' => [
        'name' => $profile->name
      ],

    ];
  }
}

So just to clarify, using this:

'contact' => new PublicContactResource($this->contact ?? new Contact),

With your original content:

return [
    'type' => 'contact',
    'meta' => [],
    'attributes' => [
        'description' => $this->when($this->description, $this->description),
        'email' => $this->email,
        'phone' => $this->phone,
        'phone_verified' => $this->phone_verified,
        'email_verified' => $this->email_verified,
    ]
];

Gives you Trying to get property 'description' of non-object?