How to bootstrap a custom script and retrieve the session object? I'm writing a custom script that requires a proper Drupal 8 user session to work. This is the current version:

&lt;?php

use Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

$drupal_root = __DIR__;
define('DRUPAL_DIR', $drupal_root);

// Specify relative path to the drupal root.
$autoloader = require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/autoload.php';
$request = Request::createFromGlobals();

// Bootstrap drupal to different levels
$kernel = DrupalKernel::createFromRequest($request, $autoloader, 'prod');
$kernel-&gt;boot();
$kernel-&gt;handlePageCache($request);
$kernel-&gt;prepareLegacyRequest($request);

// get session handler and retrieve session details
$session_handler = \Drupal::getContainer()-&gt;get('session_handler.storage');
$session_id = $session_handler-&gt;getId();
$logged_in = (bool) $session_handler-&gt;read($session_id);

// inspect values
var_dump($request-&gt;getSession());
var_dump($session_id);
var_dump($logged_in); exit;


I'd expect $request-&gt;getSession() to return something, $session_id to be the Drupal's session id, and the $logged_in variable to be truthy. Instead I keep getting this output:


NULL string(0) "" bool(false)





Update 1: I executed this on a browser, which I have an active session with my Drupal. This script is placed in a subfolder of the Drupal installation, so it should not be a cookie path issue.

Update 2: Added var_dump($request-&gt;getSession()) to the script.
This is the code I came up with in the end. It works.

Feel free to suggest a more concise version :-)

&lt;?php

use Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

$drupal_root = realpath(__DIR__ . '/../');
$autoloader = require_once $drupal_root . '/autoload.php';

// Make sure Drupal operates correct when handle request instead of internal server error and twig error
chdir($drupal_root);

$kernel = new DrupalKernel('prod', $autoloader);

// Note: The session_name is generated from the string "{domain}/{script basepath}".
// Need to override the script filename and script name before creating request.
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] = $drupal_root . '/index.php';
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] = '/index.php';
$request = Request::createFromGlobals();
// Note: may restore script_name and script_filename after this line.

// This handle process would chain up and initialize all services
// in container, include the session handler.
$kernel-&gt;handle($request);

// now we can use session normally
$session_handler = \Drupal::getContainer()-&gt;get('session_handler.storage');
$session_id = $session_handler-&gt;getId();
$logged_in = (bool) $session_handler-&gt;read($session_id);

// restore app
chdir(__DIR__);