Authenticate External API Requests Cleanly with withToken()

Use withToken() on the Laravel HTTP client to attach Authorization Bearer tokens without manual header string formatting.

When sending authenticated requests to third-party APIs, manually setting ['headers' => ['Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $token]] is repetitive.

The Laravel HTTP client provides the withToken() method.

Basic Usage

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;

// Attaches 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' header automatically
$response = Http::withToken($apiToken)
    ->get('https://api.github.com/user/repos');

Custom Token Types

If an API uses a custom authentication scheme (such as Basic or Token instead of Bearer), pass the prefix as the second argument:

// Attaches 'Authorization: Token <key>'
$response = Http::withToken($accessKey, 'Token')
    ->post('https://api.custom-service.com/events', $payload);

Summary

• Shorthand for attaching Authorization headers.
• Defaults to the standard Bearer token prefix.
• Cleanly replaces manual header array concatenation.