Mocking Authenticated Users in Laravel's Request

Here's how to mock authenticated users in Laravel's Request object.

First, here's the macro I added to the Request object, which returns the user's currently associated team. This isn't important, but some context may help.

Request::macro('team', function () {
    return $this->user()?->currentTeam;
});

If we were to write a test like this, it wouldn't work:

it('can access the current team through the request', function () {
    $user = User::factory()->create();

    expect(request()->team())->toBeInstanceOf(Team::class);
});

We don't want to (and can't) use actingAs here to authenticate the user. Nor can we use auth()->login($user).

So, the solution is to set the user resolver like this:

it('can access the current team through the request', function () {
    $user = User::factory()->create();

    request()->setUserResolver(function () use ($user) {
        return $user;
    });

    expect(request()->team())->toBeInstanceOf(Team::class);
});

Now, when the macro I created for Request invokes user(), it'll return the user defined in the test.

You can further shorten this down, too, with a short arrow function:

it('can access the current team through the request', function () {
    $user = User::factory()->create();

    request()->setUserResolver(fn () => $user);

    expect(request()->team())->toBeInstanceOf(Team::class);
});

That's it. If you need to assume an authenticated user in tests that don't make an HTTP request, override the user resolver with setUserResolver.