Custom Laravel Assertion when you often have to assert against timestamps. Just add it to your `Tests/Testcase.php`

assertHasNotNullRecordForColumn.php

<?php

    public function assertHasNotNullRecordForColumn($table, $column, $data = [])
    {
        $result = \Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB::table($table)
            ->whereNotNull($column)
            ->where($data)
            ->count() > 0;
        
        $message = sprintf(
            "Failed asserting that any row in the table [%s] matches the attributes and the column [%s] is NOT NULL.\n\n%s",
            $table, $column, json_encode($data, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT)
        );
        
        return $this->assertTrue($result, $message);
    }

bad-test.php

<?php

    /** @test */
    public function it_activates_the_user()
    {
        $response = $this->post('activate/user/1');

        $this->assertDatabaseHas('users', [
            'email' => '[email protected]',
            'activated_at' => now()
        ])
    }

failing-test.txt

Failed asserting that a row in the table [users] matches the attributes {
    "email": "[email protected]"
    "activated_at": {
        "date": "2018-07-11 13:30:27.023369", // <<<
        "timezone_type": 3,
        "timezone": "Europe\/Zurich"
    }
}.

Found: [
    {
        "id": "1",
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "activated_at": "2018-07-11 13:30:28", // <<<
        "updated_at": "2018-07-11 13:30:28",
    }
].

good-test.php

<?php

    /** @test */
    public function it_activates_the_user()
    {
        $response = $this->post('activate/user/1');

        $this->assertHasNotNullRecordForColumn('users', 'activated_at', [
            'email' => '[email protected]'
        ])
    }