What is Rules method in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application?

What is Rules method in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application? In Laravel, rules method should be understood as part of a larger application architecture rather than as an isolated API call. The rules method defines the validation constraints for incoming fields. A strong understanding includes its purpose, the layer where it belongs, the data or request flow it affects, and the situations where another mechanism may be more appropriate. Practical context: Form Request classes encapsulate validation rules and authorization checks for a specific incoming request workflow. The specific focus here is rules method: The rules method defines the validation constraints for incoming fields. This question is designed to test not only terminology, but also how the concept fits into Laravel's request, application, database, security, or deployment workflow.