I have the following form inputs in a laravel 10 application:

  @foreach ($roles as $role)

                    <div class="checkbox">
                        <label>
                            {{-- Hidden field to ensure unchecked checkboxes are recognized --}}
                            <input type="hidden" name="user_roles[]" value="" id="hidden_{{ $role->name }}">
                            {{ html()->checkbox('user_roles[]')->value($role->id)->checked(in_array($role->id, old('user_roles[]', $user->roles->pluck('id')->toArray())))->id($role->name) }} {{ $role->label }}
        
                        </label>
                    </div>
                @endforeach

There is a hidden checkbox to ensure unchecked checkboxes are posted for any form validation. When I post the form without checking any checkboxes,the hidden checkbox array will still get posted with a null value so it isn’t exactly empty

"user_roles" => array:1 [▼
  0 => null
]

Ideally I would want to post the hidden field as an empty array so that in the form request it which obviously isn’t possible:

“user_roles” => array:1 []

Basically I want the form in edit mode on intial load to pre check any saved user roles. If the user then uncheck/checks different roles and on form submission error and I want to preserve those selections. currently if i uncheck all the checkboxes and post the form the validation rule is getting bypassed

$rules = [
        'first_name' => 'required|max:255',
        'last_name' => 'required|max:255',
        'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:users,email,' . ($this->isUpdate ? $this->id : '' ),
        'password' => [$this->isUpdate ? 'nullable' : 'required', 'confirmed', Password::min(8)->letters()->numbers()->uncompromised()],
        'user_roles' => [
            'required',
            'array',
            'min:1'
        ],
        


    ];

I’ve tried setting different values to the hidden field to no avail e.g. non of the following work – they all add an initial item to the array

<input type="hidden" name="user_roles[]" value="0" id="hidden_{{ $role->name }}">

<input type="hidden" name="user_roles[]" id="hidden_{{ $role->name }}">

This was all working fine in Laravel collective but struggling to get it to work with spatie html.