session null when calling auth() from nextjs front end component to api route.ts auth.js v5

[Dujota]

sign in works fine, if i go to the route manually in browser for example:
localhost:3000/api/resource i get the json no problem.
BUT
if do a fetch/axios call from a server component to the same route localhost:3000/api/resource the session is null.

I have a postman collection that I imported, when i login to nextauth and then hit the endpoint I get the data no problem. I see postman is setting up 3 cookies for localhost authjs.callback, authjs.csrf-token, authjs.session-token.

where do i get access to data to setup the cookie on the api calls? I scoured the docs and cannot find an example.

I am doing a workaround, where im getting the session, then passing the api token as an argument and then attaching to header, parsing in route.ts and re-attaching to header to the external api, which is fine, but it would be great if i could just call auth() to get session and grab the token without messing with manually adding to headers on every call.

snippet of ideal route.ts auth handling and attached is a snip of the postman cookies that get set

 const session = (await auth()) as any; <---- this is returning null 

    if (!session?.user) {
      return new NextResponse(
        JSON.stringify({ status: "fail", message: "You are not logged in" }),
        { status: 401 },
      );
    }

    const config = {
      headers: {
        Authorization: `Bearer ${session.user.accessToken}`,
      },
    };

    const response = await apiV1.get("/users", config);