Larvel passport auth_token not saved - laravel

Question

I am working on a Laravel site and I have been the LoginController. Although I obtain the auth_token at login - it doesn't allow me to call the user method - it claims the user is "unauthetnicated"
https://laravel.com/docs/7.x/passport
https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/api-authentication
I followed some documentation claiming that its unauthenticated because I need to group commands in the route?
"This is because we are not authenticated to access that route"
https://www.toptal.com/laravel/passport-tutorial-auth-user-access
but then it throws an error with ['cors', 'json.response']?
my route/api.php looks like this
<?php
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| API Routes
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here is where you can register API routes for your application. These
| routes are loaded by the RouteServiceProvider within a group which
| is assigned the "api" middleware group. Enjoy building your API!
|
*/
Route::middleware('auth:api')->get('/user', function (Request $request) {
return $request->user();
});
Route::group(['middleware' => [/*'cors', 'json.response'*/]], function () {
// public routes
// get auth token, POST, /login
Route::post('login', 'LoginController#login');
Route::post('logout', 'LoginController#logout')->middleware('auth:api');
});
Route::middleware('auth:api')->group(function () {
// our routes to be protected will go in here
});
and my logincontroller is like this
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\User;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException;
class LoginController extends Controller
{
//
function login(Request $request)
{
$request->validate([
'email' => ['required', 'email'],
'password' => ['required']
]);
$user = User::where('email', $request->email)->first();
//if user not found or the request password and user password does not match
if(!$user || !Hash::check($request->password, $user->password)){
throw ValidationException::withMessages([
'email' => ['The provided credentials are incorrect']
]);
}
return $user->createToken('Auth Token')->accessToken;
}
function logout(Request $request)
{
$request->user()->tokens()->delete();
}
}