API, WebHook, or Cron Job?

Hello! I have some cool things happening at endpoints which are already set up in routes. A nice JSON import that is working pretty sweetly. However, I have not successfully automated it yet (hitting a button to get to the endpoint) and I am considering best practices. In order to hit this endpoint, I really want security so to hit the 'manual' trigger the user has to be logged in with higher security. Obviously the other software that generates this lovely JSON is not going to be signed in. I have it placing the JSON in the right spot, I just need to tell Laravel to scoop it up. Is there any way to have a cron job hit a protected endpoint without forcing a sign in? Should I shift all of this to API routes instead, and if so, is there a tutorial on setting up REST API from scratch because I think I need to review all the basic materials at least a couple of times. Also, in I did try to set up a kernel console schedule, and it claims to have worked, but nothing really happened. testing at one minute, would fall back to 15.

$schedule->command('runMe')->everyMinute()->thenPing('https://www.mysite.com/storage/hiddenspot/endpoint');

Once again, thanks for taking a moment to read this question.