Laravel Model Events - I'm a bit confused about where they're meant to go

In your case, you may also use following approach:

// Put this code in your Article Model

public static function boot() {

    parent::boot();

    static::created(function($article) {
        Event::fire('article.created', $article);
    });

    static::updated(function($article) {
        Event::fire('article.updated', $article);
    });

    static::deleted(function($article) {
        Event::fire('article.deleted', $article);
    });
}

Also, you need to register listeners in App\Providers\EventServiceProvider:

protected $listen = [
    'article.created' => [
        'App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEvents@articleCreated',
    ],
    'article.updated' => [
        'App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEvents@articleUpdated',
    ],
    'article.deleted' => [
        'App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEvents@articleDeleted',
    ],
];

Also make sure you have created the handlers in App\Handlers\Events folder/directory to handle that event. For example, article.created handler could be like this:

<?php namespace App\Handlers\Events;

use App\Article;
use App\Services\Email\Mailer; // This one I use to email as a service class

class ArticleEvents {

    protected $mailer = null;

    public function __construct(Mailer $mailer)
    {
        $this->mailer = $mailer;
    }

    public function articleCreated(Article $article)
    {
        // Implement mailer or use laravel mailer directly
        $this->mailer->notifyArticleCreated($article);
    }

    // Other Handlers/Methods...
}

Recently I came to same problem in one of my Laravel 5 project, where I had to log all Model Events. I decided to use Traits. I created ModelEventLogger Trait and simply used in all Model class which needed to be logged. I am going to change it as per your need Which is given below.

<?php

namespace App\Traits;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Event;

/**
 * Class ModelEventThrower 
 * @package App\Traits
 *
 *  Automatically throw Add, Update, Delete events of Model.
 */
trait ModelEventThrower {

    /**
     * Automatically boot with Model, and register Events handler.
     */
    protected static function bootModelEventThrower()
    {
        foreach (static::getModelEvents() as $eventName) {
            static::$eventName(function (Model $model) use ($eventName) {
                try {
                    $reflect = new \ReflectionClass($model);
                    Event::fire(strtolower($reflect->getShortName()).'.'.$eventName, $model);
                } catch (\Exception $e) {
                    return true;
                }
            });
        }
    }

    /**
     * Set the default events to be recorded if the $recordEvents
     * property does not exist on the model.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    protected static function getModelEvents()
    {
        if (isset(static::$recordEvents)) {
            return static::$recordEvents;
        }

        return [
            'created',
            'updated',
            'deleted',
        ];
    }
} 

Now you can use this trait in any Model you want to throw events for. In your case in Article Model.

<?php namespace App;

use App\Traits\ModelEventThrower;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Article extends Model {

    use ModelEventThrower;

    //Just in case you want specific events to be fired for Article model
    //uncomment following line of code

   // protected static $recordEvents = ['created'];

}

Now in your app/Providers/EventServiceProvider.php, in boot() method register Event Handler for Article.

 public function boot(DispatcherContract $events)
 {
     parent::boot($events);
     $events->subscribe('App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEventHandler');
 }

Now create Class ArticleEventHandler under app/Handlers/Events directory as below,

<?php namespace App\Handlers\Events;

use App\Article;

class ArticleEventHandler{

    /**
     * Create the event handler.
     *
     * @return \App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEventHandler
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        //
    }

    /**
    * Handle article.created event
    */

   public function created(Article $article)
   {
      //Implement logic
   }

   /**
   * Handle article.updated event
   */

   public function updated(Article $article)
   {
      //Implement logic
   }

  /**
  * Handle article.deleted event
  */

  public function deleted(Article $article)
  {
     //Implement logic
  }

 /**
 * @param $events
 */
 public function subscribe($events)
 {
     $events->listen('article.created',
            'App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEventHandler@created');
     $events->listen('article.updated',
            'App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEventHandler@updated');
     $events->listen('article.deleted',
            'App\Handlers\Events\ArticleEventHandler@deleted');
 }

}

As you can see from different answers, from different Users, there are more than 1 way of handling Model Events. There are also Custom events That can be created in Events folder and can be handled in Handler folder and can be dispatched from different places. I hope it helps.

I found this the cleanest way to do what you want.

1.- Create an observer for the model (ArticleObserver)

use App\Article;

class ArticleObserver{

  public function __construct(Article $articles){
    $this->articles = $articles
  }

  public function created(Article $article){
    // Do anything you want to do, $article is the newly created article
  }

}

2.- Create a new ServiceProvider (ObserversServiceProvider), remember to add it to you config/app.php

use App\Observers\ArticleObserver;
use App\Article;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;

class ObserversServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{

  public function boot()
  {
    Article::observe($this->app->make(ArticleObserver::class));
  }

  public function register()
  {
    $this->app->bindShared(ArticleObserver::class, function()
        {
            return new ArticleObserver(new Article());
        });
  }

}