What is Laravel's authentication system?

Laravel provides a complete authentication system. The Auth facade handles login: Auth::attempt(["email" => $email, "password" => $password]). Check authentication: Auth::check(). Get current user: Auth::user(). Logout: Auth::logout(). Laravel offers starter kits for scaffolding authentication UI: Laravel Breeze (simple, Blade-based), Laravel Jetstream (advanced, supports Livewire or Inertia.js, two-factor auth, API tokens). The auth middleware protects routes from unauthenticated access. The auth.php config defines guards (web, api) and providers (Eloquent, database). Guards determine how users are authenticated per request; providers determine how users are retrieved from storage.