Is it possible to pass data from middleware to the request in Laravel 5.5?

I have a custom api auth based on token. It is implemented using a middleware. I'd like to attach the logged in user to the request, so it will be available in the controller.

Here's what I tried in my middleware:

public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
    // Load api key
    $api_key = ApiKey::where('api_key', $request->header('X-API-KEY'))
        ->with('user')
        ->first();

    // Check if api key is valid
    if (!$api_key) {
        throw new HttpException(401, 'Invalid api key.');
    }


    // Append api key user to the request
    $request->attributes->add(['api_user' => $api_key->user]);

    // Proceed with the request
    return $next($request);
}

Then in my controller, I've tried to retrieve the custom request attribute like this:

var_dump($request->get('api_user')); // returns 'null'
var_dump($request->attributes->get('api_user')); // returns 'null'
var_dump($request->api_user); // returns 'null'

I've also tried setting the api user to request like this also:

$request->attributes->set('api_user', $api_key->user);
$request->merge(['api_user' => $api_key->user]);

Still no luck.

Any ideas? or is this not possible?

via Chebli Mohamed