Set up routing for users with optional login in Sanctum

Question

Sanctum shares the middleware Auth:sanctum and it works. Take a look at this code:

Route::middleware('auth:sanctum')->group(function () {
    Route::post('/profile', [TestController::class, 'test']);
});

And the controller method:

public function test()
{
    if (Auth::check()) {
        return 'user';
    } else {
        return 'Guest';
    }
}

The problem is that if my route uses the "auth:sanctum" middleware, everything works fine for logged in users, but for guests I get an "Unauthorized" error. Without using this middleware, the authentication doesn't work properly and doesn't recognize if I'm logged in (always returns 'Guest'). How can I solve this problem? I want to show the user when logged in, otherwise "Guest" needs to be shown.

Answer 1

If the user uses Sanctum for authentication, try using: auth('sanctum')->check().