Why doesn't this dashboard route follow my middleware logic?

I am working on a Laravel 8 app that uses Microsoft Azure for user management (login included).

I began by following this tutorial on their website.

I have these routes "under" the dashboard route, that I want to protect with a piece of custom middleware:

// Dashboard routes Route::get('/dashboard', [DashboardContoller::class, 'index'])->name('dashboard');  Route::group(['prefix' => 'dashboard' , 'middleware' => ['checkSignedIn']], function() {     Route::get('/users', [UsersContoller::class, 'index']);     Route::get('/create-user', [UsersContoller::class, 'create']);     Route::get('/delete-user/{id}', [UsersContoller::class, 'delete']); }); 

The conditions for a user to be allowed to the application's dashboard are:

1. They sign in with a valid Microsoft account

2. Their email is inside an aray of alowed emails:

   private $allowedEmails = [     '[email protected]',     'user.[email protected]',     '[email protected]', ]; 

For this purpose, I have done the flollowing:

Created a CheckSignedIn middleware, with php artisan make:middleware CheckSignedIn.

Registered the above middleware in app\Http\Kernel.php:

protected $routeMiddleware = [     // More middleware     'checkSignedIn' => \App\Http\Middleware\CheckSignedIn::class, ]; 

In app\Http\Middleware\CheckSignedIn.php I have:

namespace App\Http\Middleware; use Closure; use Illuminate\Http\Request;  class CheckSignedIn { /**  * Handle an incoming request.  *  * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request  * @param  \Closure(\Illuminate\Http\Request): (\Illuminate\Http\Response|\Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse)  $next  * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response|\Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse  */  private $allowedEmails = [     '[email protected]',     '[email protected]',     '[email protected]', ];   public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next) {   $isSignedIn = null !== session('userName') && in_array(session('userEmail'), $this->allowedEmails);          if (!$isSignedIn) {           return redirect('/');       }              return $next($request);     } } 

The problem

Evan if I am not logged in I can still see the dashboard (the /dashboard route).

Shouldn't this line deal with the /dashboard route too?

Route::group(['prefix' => 'dashboard' , 'middleware' => ['checkSignedIn']], function() { 

What am I doing wrong?

Answers 1: of Why doesn't this dashboard route follow my middleware logic?

 // Dashboard routes Route::group(['prefix' => 'dashboard', 'middleware' => ['checkSignedIn']], function() {     Route::get('/', [DashboardContoller::class, 'index'])->name('dashboard');     Route::get('/users', [UsersContoller::class, 'index']);     Route::get('/create-user', [UsersContoller::class, 'create']);     Route::get('/delete-user/{id}', [UsersContoller::class, 'delete']); });