What is Resource transformation in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application?

What is Resource transformation in Laravel, and what role does it play in a real application? In Laravel, resource transformation should be understood as part of a larger application architecture rather than as an isolated API call. A resource defines how a model should be represented in an API response. 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: API Resources transform models and relationships into controlled JSON representations so APIs can expose a stable response structure. The specific focus here is resource transformation: A resource defines how a model should be represented in an API response. 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.