Like you said, passport was designed for express. It’s really just cookie middleware.

I've decided to switch to using pages instead of the App Router because I've been facing challenges while working with middlewares in the App Router. Despite searching extensively, I couldn't find any relevant documentation, support on Stack Overflow, Reddit, or other platforms for assistance with this API. Even ChatGPT couldn't provide the necessary help. I've reached a point of frustration, and I'm now downgrading from the App Router to Pages.

You can still use pages in 13 if you want (it's still getting updates). You just won't get some of the benefits of the app dir.

It’s planned to get updates and bug fixes, but it won’t have the features of react* 18