Merging the current user ID to the request in Laravel using web middleware

AddUserIdToRequest.php

<?php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;

class MergeUserIdIntoRequest
{
    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \Closure  $next
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
    	$request->merge(['user_id' => auth()->id()]);

    	return $next($request);
    }
}

Able to always get the authenticated user ID by $request->user_id .