Getting the Laravel session in a separate PHP file, honours session settings in config Laravel config.

gistfile1.php

<?php
require_once '/path/to/laravel/bootstrap/autoload.php';

// Initialize the app
$app = require '/path/to/laravel/bootstrap/start.php';

$request = $app['request'];                                    

// Decrypt the cookies
$cookieGuard = new Guard($app, $app['encrypter']);             
$cookieGuard->handle($request);                                

// Initialize the session
$session = $app['session.store'];                              
$session->setRequestOnHandler($request);                       
$session->setId($request->cookies->get($session->getName()));  
$session->start();