Before continuing, make sure you have installed the package as per the installation instructions for Laravel or Lumen.

Update your User model

Firstly you need to implement the Tymon\JWTAuth\Contracts\JWTSubject contract on your User model, which requires that you implement the 2 methods getJWTIdentifier() and getJWTCustomClaims().

The example below should give you an idea of how this could look. Obviously you should make any changes, as necessary, to suit your own needs.

<?php

namespace App;

use Tymon\JWTAuth\Contracts\JWTSubject;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;

class User extends Authenticatable implements JWTSubject
{
    use Notifiable;

    // Rest omitted for brevity

    /**
     * Get the identifier that will be stored in the subject claim of the JWT.
     *
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function getJWTIdentifier()
    {
        return $this->getKey();
    }

    /**
     * Return a key value array, containing any custom claims to be added to the JWT.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function getJWTCustomClaims()
    {
        return [];
    }
}

Configure Auth guard

Note: This will only work if you are using Laravel 5.2 and above.

Inside the config/auth.php file you will need to make a few changes to configure Laravel to use the jwt guard to power your application authentication.

Make the following changes to the file:

'defaults' => [
    'guard' => 'api',
    'passwords' => 'users',
],

...

'guards' => [
    'api' => [
        'driver' => 'jwt',
        'provider' => 'users',
    ],
],

Here we are telling the api guard to use the jwt driver, and we are setting the api guard as the default.

We can now use Laravel's built in Auth system, with jwt-auth doing the work behind the scenes!

Add some basic authentication routes

First let's add some routes in routes/api.php as follows:

Route::group([

    'middleware' => 'api',
    'prefix' => 'auth'

], function ($router) {

    Route::post('login', 'AuthController@login');
    Route::post('logout', 'AuthController@logout');
    Route::post('refresh', 'AuthController@refresh');
    Route::post('me', 'AuthController@me');

});

Create the AuthController

Then create the AuthController, either manually or by running the artisan command:

php artisan make:controller AuthController

Then add the following:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

class AuthController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Create a new AuthController instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->middleware('auth:api', ['except' => ['login']]);
    }

    /**
     * Get a JWT via given credentials.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse
     */
    public function login()
    {
        $credentials = request(['email', 'password']);

        if (! $token = auth()->attempt($credentials)) {
            return response()->json(['error' => 'Unauthorized'], 401);
        }

        return $this->respondWithToken($token);
    }

    /**
     * Get the authenticated User.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse
     */
    public function me()
    {
        return response()->json(auth()->user());
    }

    /**
     * Log the user out (Invalidate the token).
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse
     */
    public function logout()
    {
        auth()->logout();

        return response()->json(['message' => 'Successfully logged out']);
    }

    /**
     * Refresh a token.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse
     */
    public function refresh()
    {
        return $this->respondWithToken(auth()->refresh());
    }

    /**
     * Get the token array structure.
     *
     * @param  string $token
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse
     */
    protected function respondWithToken($token)
    {
        return response()->json([
            'access_token' => $token,
            'token_type' => 'bearer',
            'expires_in' => auth()->factory()->getTTL() * 60
        ]);
    }
}

You should now be able to POST to the login endpoint (e.g. http://example.dev/auth/login) with some valid credentials and see a response like:

{
    "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiYWRtaW4iOnRydWV9.TJVA95OrM7E2cBab30RMHrHDcEfxjoYZgeFONFh7HgQ",
    "token_type": "bearer",
    "expires_in": 3600
}

This token can then be used to make authenticated requests to your application.

Authenticated requests

There are a number of ways to send the token via http:

Authorization header

Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiI...

Query string parameter

http://example.dev/me?token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiI...

Post parameter

Cookies

Laravel route parameter