I'm going to be running new 14/2 from an outlet mounted on the inside of the same wall, through the header, and into the eave/soffit cavity outside. This new outlet will be used to power a nest camera and some string lights.
To keep things looking clean, I was thinking of just doing a surface install to the side of one of the ceiling joists that extends into the soffit. The soffit is wood, so to give me access to this outlet (both during installation and for somewhat adhering to code) I was going to install an access panel in the soffit.
My question is can I run the Romex directly into the box mounted to the joist? Or, since that outlet will still technically be accessible, do I need to use conduit over the Romex wherever it's visible from the open access panel?
Unrelated but for completeness, I intend to drill a hole in the soffit to route the lights and camera cables into the soffit cavity and plug them into the new outlet. Then caulk around that hole to close things up.