# Laravel: Seed Users table and send password reset link

A useful feature for setting up your application fast is using the seeders, especially for testing and developing it's great to have data to work on with just 1 command.

A problem for me though was that if  I seed users with a password it would mean I either have to store the passwords in the `.env`-file or commit them to git.

So instead I researched and found a way to generate a password reset token and send the notifications, so now when I seed users will receive a link to create a secret password.

This method is mainly useful if you are 1 developer as you don't want to let the whole team know that you have just reset the database on your local machine.

Here is the basic use  of `UsersTableSeeder.php` which you can extend. Please note that I use the built ind authentication features of Laravel and have set up Mailgun in order to receive emails.

````
<?php

use App\User;
use Carbon\Carbon;
use Illuminate\Auth\Notifications\ResetPassword as ResetPasswordNotification;
use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
use Illuminate\Auth\Passwords\PasswordBroker;

class UsersTableSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeds.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        $user = User::firstOrCreate([
            'name' => 'John D.', // Your display name
            'email' => 'mail@domain.tld', // Your email address
            'password' => Hash::make(Str::random(32)), // Password can't be empty so I generate a random non-known password.
            'email_verified_at' => Carbon::now(), // I don't want to also have to verify the account, so I let it be verified per default.
        ]);

        $user->notify(new ResetPasswordNotification(app(PasswordBroker::class)->createToken($user))); // This generates a token and sends the email
    }
}
````