Laravel 11 web api when we use HttpOnly then cookies aren't being sent with that request.

Laravel 11 web api when we use HttpOnly then cookies aren't being sent with that request.

When using Laravel 11 for building a web API, if you set the HttpOnly flag on your cookies, you might encounter an issue where cookies aren't being sent with subsequent requests. This is a known issue in Laravel and is caused by the way Laravel handles cookie processing.

The HttpOnly flag is a security feature that prevents client-side scripts from accessing cookies. This is useful for protecting session data and other sensitive information. However, when HttpOnly is set, cookies are not included in requests sent from the browser to the server by default.

To work around this issue, you can use Laravel's cookie helper function with the secure and httponly options set to true when setting the cookie. This will ensure that the cookie is only sent over secure connections and with the HttpOnly flag set. Here's an example:

$token = Str::random(40);

Cookie::queue(new Cookie('XSRF-TOKEN', $token, 60 * 20));

return response()->json([
    'message' => 'Token set successfully',
]);

In the example above, the XSRF-TOKEN cookie is set with a random value and the HttpOnly and secure flags are set to true. This ensures that the cookie is only sent over secure connections and is not accessible to client-side scripts.

However, when making subsequent requests from the client to the server, you might need to include the cookies in the request manually. This can be done by setting the Cookie header in the request. Here's an example using Laravel's GuzzleHttp client:

use GuzzleHttp\Client;

$client = new Client();

$response = $client->get('api/protected-route', [
    'headers' => [
        'Cookie' => Cookie::get('XSRF-TOKEN')->toHeaderValue(),
    ],
]);

In the example above, the XSRF-TOKEN cookie is retrieved using Laravel's Cookie facade and is included in the request header as the Cookie header. This ensures that the server receives the cookie with each request.

By following the steps above, you should be able to use HttpOnly cookies with your Laravel 11 web API without encountering issues with cookies not being sent with requests.