Custom API token verification middleware question

Hello,

I am building an API for an application that is not build with laravel. I tried laravel sanctum but I think its abit too complicated to integrate, since the application is not using any conventions at all and I am not sure how to do it.

So, I have made a middleware that checks the token. My first question, is this a good approach or a custom gate is better?

My second question, can I have access to the User model at my route without needing to re-query it? My middleware is this:

  public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {

        if (!$request->hasHeader('Authorization')) {
            abort(401, 'Unauthorized');
        }

        $user = User::where('api_key', explode(' ', $request->header('Authorization'))[1])->first();

        if (!$user) {
            abort(401, 'Unauthorized');
        }


        return $next($request);
    }

Note the header is "Authorization: Token 106665f4-87c2-4a79-bb5f-279f4b8973bd".

My route/api.php file is:

Route::get('/', function () {

    return 'hello world';
})->middleware('apikey');

Where apikey is the middleware.

So, since during the middleware I did query and found the user, can I somehow pass it to the route so I can then pass it to a controller without doing a SQL query again?

Thank you, Ilias