What is a Factory in Laravel?

Model Factories generate fake model instances for testing and seeding. Generate: php artisan make:factory UserFactory --model=User. Factories use the Faker library to generate realistic fake data. Define state: public function definition(): array { return ["name" => $this->faker->name, "email" => $this->faker->email, "password" => bcrypt("password")]; }. Create instances: User::factory()->make() (not persisted), User::factory()->create() (saved to DB), User::factory()->count(10)->create() (bulk). Override specific attributes: User::factory()->create(["name" => "Alice"]). Define states for special conditions: User::factory()->admin()->create(). Factories are essential for feature tests and development data.