Creating middleware in Laravel - Try It Yourself

Creating Middleware in Laravel

📖 Scenario: You are building a Laravel web application that needs to restrict access to certain routes based on user roles. Middleware is a way to filter HTTP requests entering your app.In this project, you will create a middleware that checks if a user is an admin before allowing access to admin routes.

🎯 Goal: Build a middleware in Laravel named CheckAdmin that blocks users who are not admins from accessing admin routes.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a middleware class named CheckAdmin

Add a configuration variable adminRole with the value admin

Implement the handle method to check if the authenticated user's role matches adminRole

Return a redirect to /home if the user is not an admin, otherwise allow the request to proceed

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Middleware is used in real Laravel apps to control access, add security checks, and modify requests before they reach your controllers.

💼 Career

Understanding middleware is essential for backend Laravel developers to implement authentication, authorization, and request filtering.

1

Create the middleware class

Create a middleware class named CheckAdmin inside the app/Http/Middleware directory with a handle method that accepts $request and $next parameters.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CheckAdmin
{
    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use php artisan make:middleware CheckAdmin to generate the middleware class automatically, then open app/Http/Middleware/CheckAdmin.php to edit the handle method.

2

Add the admin role configuration variable

Inside the CheckAdmin class, add a protected property named adminRole and set it to the string 'admin'.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CheckAdmin
{
    // Add the adminRole property below

    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Declare a protected property adminRole inside the class and assign it the value 'admin'.

3

Implement the admin check logic

Inside the handle method, write an if statement that checks if the authenticated user's role is not equal to $this->adminRole. If so, return a redirect to /home. Otherwise, return $next($request) to allow the request to continue.

Laravel

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CheckAdmin
{
    protected string $adminRole = 'admin';

    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        // Add the admin role check below
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use $request->user()?->role to get the current user's role safely. Redirect if not admin, else continue.

4

Register the middleware in the kernel

Open app/Http/Kernel.php and add the CheckAdmin middleware to the $routeMiddleware array with the key 'check.admin'.

Laravel

<?php

// In app/Http/Kernel.php

protected $routeMiddleware = [
    // Add the check.admin middleware below
    // Your code here
];

Need a hint?

Register your middleware with a key in the $routeMiddleware array so you can use it in routes.