Fastapi Microservices Development

FastAPI Microservices Development

A comprehensive skill for building production-ready microservices using FastAPI. This skill covers REST API design patterns, asynchronous operations, dependency injection, testing strategies, and deployment best practices for scalable Python applications.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Building RESTful microservices with Python
• Developing high-performance async APIs
• Creating production-grade web services with comprehensive validation
• Implementing service-oriented architectures
• Building APIs requiring advanced dependency injection
• Developing services with complex authentication/authorization
• Creating scalable, maintainable backend services
• Building APIs with automatic OpenAPI documentation
• Implementing WebSocket services alongside REST APIs
• Deploying containerized Python services to production

Core Concepts

FastAPI Fundamentals

FastAPI is a modern, high-performance web framework for building APIs with Python 3.7+ based on standard Python type hints.

Key Features:

• Fast: Very high performance, on par with NodeJS and Go (powered by Starlette and Pydantic)
• Fast to code: Increase development speed by 200-300%
• Fewer bugs: Reduce human-induced errors by about 40%
• Intuitive: Great editor support with autocompletion everywhere
• Easy: Designed to be easy to learn and use
• Short: Minimize code duplication
• Robust: Production-ready code with automatic interactive documentation
• Standards-based: Based on OpenAPI and JSON Schema

Async/Await Programming

FastAPI fully supports asynchronous request handling using Python's async/await syntax:

from fastapi import FastAPI

app = FastAPI()

@app.get('/burgers')
async def read_burgers():
    burgers = await get_burgers(2)
    return burgers

When to use async def:

• Database queries with async drivers
• External API calls
• File I/O operations
• Long-running computations that can be awaited
• WebSocket connections
• Background task processing

When to use regular def:

• Simple CRUD operations
• Synchronous database libraries
• CPU-bound operations
• Quick data transformations

Dependency Injection System

FastAPI's dependency injection is one of its most powerful features, enabling:

• Code reusability across endpoints
• Shared logic implementation
• Database connection management
• Authentication and authorization
• Request validation
• Background task scheduling

Basic Dependency Pattern:

from typing import Annotated, Union
from fastapi import Depends, FastAPI

app = FastAPI()

# Dependency function
async def common_parameters(
    q: Union[str, None] = None,
    skip: int = 0,
    limit: int = 100
):
    return {"q": q, "skip": skip, "limit": limit}

# Using dependency in multiple endpoints
@app.get("/items/")
async def read_items(commons: Annotated[dict, Depends(common_parameters)]):
    return {"params": commons, "items": ["item1", "item2"]}

@app.get("/users/")
async def read_users(commons: Annotated[dict, Depends(common_parameters)]):
    return {"params": commons, "users": ["user1", "user2"]}

Microservices Architecture Patterns

Service Design Principles

1. Single Responsibility

• Each microservice handles one business capability
• Clear boundaries and minimal coupling
• Independent deployment and scaling

2. API-First Design

• Design APIs before implementation
• Use OpenAPI schemas for contracts
• Version APIs appropriately

3. Database Per Service

• Each service owns its data
• No direct database sharing
• Use APIs for cross-service data access

4. Stateless Services

• Services don't maintain client session state
• Enables horizontal scaling
• Use external storage for session data

Service Communication Patterns

Synchronous Communication (REST APIs):

import httpx
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException

app = FastAPI()

@app.get("/orders/{order_id}")
async def get_order(order_id: str):
    # Call another microservice
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        try:
            response = await client.get(f"http://inventory-service/stock/{order_id}")
            inventory_data = response.json()
        except httpx.HTTPError:
            raise HTTPException(status_code=503, detail="Inventory service unavailable")

    return {"order_id": order_id, "inventory": inventory_data}

Event-Driven Communication:

• Use message brokers (RabbitMQ, Kafka, Redis)
• Publish/Subscribe patterns
• Asynchronous processing
• Loose coupling between services

Service Discovery

Options:

• Environment variables for simple setups
• Consul, Eureka for dynamic discovery
• Kubernetes DNS for K8s deployments
• API Gateway for centralized routing

REST API Design Patterns

Resource Modeling

RESTful Resource Design:

from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException
from pydantic import BaseModel
from typing import List, Optional

app = FastAPI()

# Resource Models
class ItemBase(BaseModel):
    name: str
    description: Optional[str] = None
    price: float
    tax: Optional[float] = None

class ItemCreate(ItemBase):
    pass

class Item(ItemBase):
    id: int
    owner_id: int

    class Config:
        from_attributes = True

# Collection Endpoints
@app.get("/items/", response_model=List[Item])
async def list_items(skip: int = 0, limit: int = 100):
    """List all items with pagination"""
    items = await get_items_from_db(skip=skip, limit=limit)
    return items

@app.post("/items/", response_model=Item, status_code=201)
async def create_item(item: ItemCreate):
    """Create a new item"""
    new_item = await save_item_to_db(item)
    return new_item

# Resource Endpoints
@app.get("/items/{item_id}", response_model=Item)
async def read_item(item_id: int):
    """Get a specific item by ID"""
    item = await get_item_from_db(item_id)
    if item is None:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Item not found")
    return item

@app.put("/items/{item_id}", response_model=Item)
async def update_item(item_id: int, item: ItemCreate):
    """Update an existing item"""
    updated_item = await update_item_in_db(item_id, item)
    if updated_item is None:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Item not found")
    return updated_item

@app.delete("/items/{item_id}", status_code=204)
async def delete_item(item_id: int):
    """Delete an item"""
    success = await delete_item_from_db(item_id)
    if not success:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Item not found")

API Versioning

URL Path Versioning (Recommended):

from fastapi import FastAPI, APIRouter

app = FastAPI()

# V1 API Router
v1_router = APIRouter(prefix="/api/v1")

@v1_router.get("/users/")
async def list_users_v1():
    return {"version": "v1", "users": []}

# V2 API Router
v2_router = APIRouter(prefix="/api/v2")

@v2_router.get("/users/")
async def list_users_v2():
    return {"version": "v2", "users": [], "metadata": {}}

app.include_router(v1_router)
app.include_router(v2_router)

Request/Response Validation

FastAPI uses Pydantic for automatic validation:

from pydantic import BaseModel, Field, EmailStr, validator
from typing import Optional
from datetime import datetime

class UserCreate(BaseModel):
    username: str = Field(..., min_length=3, max_length=50)
    email: EmailStr
    password: str = Field(..., min_length=8)
    age: Optional[int] = Field(None, ge=0, le=150)

    @validator('username')
    def username_alphanumeric(cls, v):
        assert v.isalnum(), 'must be alphanumeric'
        return v

    @validator('password')
    def password_strength(cls, v):
        if not any(char.isdigit() for char in v):
            raise ValueError('must contain at least one digit')
        if not any(char.isupper() for char in v):
            raise ValueError('must contain at least one uppercase letter')
        return v

class UserResponse(BaseModel):
    id: int
    username: str
    email: EmailStr
    created_at: datetime

    class Config:
        from_attributes = True

@app.post("/users/", response_model=UserResponse, status_code=201)
async def create_user(user: UserCreate):
    # Automatic validation of request body
    new_user = await save_user(user)
    return new_user

Advanced Dependency Injection

Dependencies with Yield

Dependencies can use yield for setup/teardown operations:

from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends

app = FastAPI()

# Database dependency with cleanup
async def get_db():
    db = await connect_to_database()
    try:
        yield db
    finally:
        await db.close()

@app.get("/items/")
async def read_items(db = Depends(get_db)):
    items = await db.query("SELECT * FROM items")
    return items

Advanced Resource Management:

from fastapi import Depends, HTTPException

async def get_database():
    with Session() as session:
        try:
            yield session
        except HTTPException:
            session.rollback()
            raise
        finally:
            session.close()

@app.post("/users/")
async def create_user(user: UserCreate, db = Depends(get_database)):
    try:
        new_user = db.add(User(**user.dict()))
        db.commit()
        return new_user
    except Exception as e:
        # Session automatically rolled back by dependency
        raise HTTPException(status_code=500, detail=str(e))

Sub-Dependencies

Dependencies can depend on other dependencies:

from typing import Optional
from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends, Cookie

app = FastAPI()

async def query_extractor(q: Optional[str] = None):
    return q

async def query_or_cookie_extractor(
    q: str = Depends(query_extractor),
    last_query: Optional[str] = Cookie(None)
):
    if not q:
        return last_query
    return q

@app.get('/items/')
async def read_items(query: str = Depends(query_or_cookie_extractor)):
    return {'query': query}

Class-Based Dependencies

Use classes for complex dependency logic:

from typing import Optional
from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends

app = FastAPI()

class CommonQueryParams:
    def __init__(
        self,
        q: Optional[str] = None,
        skip: int = 0,
        limit: int = 100,
    ):
        self.q = q
        self.skip = skip
        self.limit = limit

@app.get("/items/")
async def read_items(commons: CommonQueryParams = Depends(CommonQueryParams)):
    return {"q": commons.q, "skip": commons.skip, "limit": commons.limit}

# Shortcut syntax
@app.get("/users/")
async def read_users(commons: CommonQueryParams = Depends()):
    return commons

Global Dependencies

Apply dependencies to all routes:

from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends, Header, HTTPException

async def verify_token(x_token: str = Header(...)):
    if x_token != "secret-token":
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Invalid X-Token header")
    return x_token

async def verify_key(x_key: str = Header(...)):
    if x_key != "secret-key":
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Invalid X-Key header")
    return x_key

# Apply to entire application
app = FastAPI(dependencies=[Depends(verify_token), Depends(verify_key)])

# Apply to router
from fastapi import APIRouter

router = APIRouter(
    prefix="/items",
    dependencies=[Depends(verify_token)]
)

@router.get("/")
async def read_items():
    return [{"item_id": "Foo"}]

app.include_router(router)

Reusable Dependency Aliases

Create type aliases for common dependencies:

from typing import Annotated
from fastapi import Depends

# Define reusable dependency types
async def get_current_user():
    return {"username": "johndoe"}

CurrentUser = Annotated[dict, Depends(get_current_user)]

# Use across multiple endpoints
@app.get("/items/")
def read_items(user: CurrentUser):
    return {"user": user, "items": []}

@app.post("/items/")
def create_item(user: CurrentUser, item: Item):
    return {"user": user, "item": item}

@app.delete("/items/{item_id}")
def delete_item(user: CurrentUser, item_id: int):
    return {"user": user, "deleted": item_id}

Authentication & Authorization

OAuth2 with Password Flow

from fastapi import Depends, FastAPI, HTTPException, status
from fastapi.security import OAuth2PasswordBearer, OAuth2PasswordRequestForm
from pydantic import BaseModel
from typing import Optional
import jwt
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

app = FastAPI()

oauth2_scheme = OAuth2PasswordBearer(tokenUrl="token")

SECRET_KEY = "your-secret-key"
ALGORITHM = "HS256"
ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRE_MINUTES = 30

class Token(BaseModel):
    access_token: str
    token_type: str

class User(BaseModel):
    username: str
    email: Optional[str] = None
    full_name: Optional[str] = None
    disabled: Optional[bool] = None

def create_access_token(data: dict, expires_delta: Optional[timedelta] = None):
    to_encode = data.copy()
    if expires_delta:
        expire = datetime.utcnow() + expires_delta
    else:
        expire = datetime.utcnow() + timedelta(minutes=15)
    to_encode.update({"exp": expire})
    encoded_jwt = jwt.encode(to_encode, SECRET_KEY, algorithm=ALGORITHM)
    return encoded_jwt

async def get_current_user(token: str = Depends(oauth2_scheme)):
    credentials_exception = HTTPException(
        status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
        detail="Could not validate credentials",
        headers={"WWW-Authenticate": "Bearer"},
    )
    try:
        payload = jwt.decode(token, SECRET_KEY, algorithms=[ALGORITHM])
        username: str = payload.get("sub")
        if username is None:
            raise credentials_exception
    except jwt.PyJWTError:
        raise credentials_exception

    user = await get_user_from_db(username)
    if user is None:
        raise credentials_exception
    return user

async def get_current_active_user(current_user: User = Depends(get_current_user)):
    if current_user.disabled:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Inactive user")
    return current_user

@app.post("/token", response_model=Token)
async def login(form_data: OAuth2PasswordRequestForm = Depends()):
    user = await authenticate_user(form_data.username, form_data.password)
    if not user:
        raise HTTPException(
            status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
            detail="Incorrect username or password",
            headers={"WWW-Authenticate": "Bearer"},
        )
    access_token_expires = timedelta(minutes=ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRE_MINUTES)
    access_token = create_access_token(
        data={"sub": user.username}, expires_delta=access_token_expires
    )
    return {"access_token": access_token, "token_type": "bearer"}

@app.get("/users/me")
async def read_users_me(current_user: User = Depends(get_current_active_user)):
    return current_user

OAuth2 with Scopes

from fastapi.security import SecurityScopes
from pydantic import ValidationError

async def get_current_user(
    security_scopes: SecurityScopes,
    token: str = Depends(oauth2_scheme)
):
    if security_scopes.scopes:
        authenticate_value = f'Bearer scope="{security_scopes.scope_str}"'
    else:
        authenticate_value = "Bearer"

    credentials_exception = HTTPException(
        status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
        detail="Could not validate credentials",
        headers={"WWW-Authenticate": authenticate_value},
    )

    try:
        payload = jwt.decode(token, SECRET_KEY, algorithms=[ALGORITHM])
        username: str = payload.get("sub")
        token_scopes = payload.get("scopes", [])
    except (jwt.PyJWTError, ValidationError):
        raise credentials_exception

    for scope in security_scopes.scopes:
        if scope not in token_scopes:
            raise HTTPException(
                status_code=status.HTTP_403_FORBIDDEN,
                detail="Not enough permissions",
                headers={"WWW-Authenticate": authenticate_value},
            )

    user = await get_user(username)
    if user is None:
        raise credentials_exception
    return user

@app.get("/items/", dependencies=[Security(get_current_user, scopes=["items:read"])])
async def read_items():
    return [{"item_id": "Foo"}]

@app.post("/items/", dependencies=[Security(get_current_user, scopes=["items:write"])])
async def create_item(item: Item):
    return item

Background Tasks

Simple Background Tasks

from fastapi import FastAPI, BackgroundTasks

app = FastAPI()

def write_log(message: str):
    with open("log.txt", mode="a") as log_file:
        log_file.write(message)

@app.post("/send-notification/{email}")
async def send_notification(email: str, background_tasks: BackgroundTasks):
    background_tasks.add_task(write_log, f"Notification sent to {email}\n")
    return {"message": "Notification sent in the background"}

Background Tasks with Dependencies

from fastapi import BackgroundTasks, Depends
from typing import Annotated

def write_log(message: str):
    with open("log.txt", mode="a") as log_file:
        log_file.write(message)

async def get_query_and_log(
    query: str | None = None,
    background_tasks: BackgroundTasks = Depends()
):
    if query:
        background_tasks.add_task(write_log, f"query: {query}\n")
    return query

@app.post("/send-notification/{email}")
async def send_notification(
    email: str,
    background_tasks: BackgroundTasks,
    query: Annotated[str | None, Depends(get_query_and_log)],
):
    background_tasks.add_task(write_log, f"email: {email}, query: {query}\n")
    return {"message": "Notification sent"}

WebSocket Support

Basic WebSocket

from fastapi import WebSocket, WebSocketDisconnect

@app.websocket("/ws")
async def websocket_endpoint(websocket: WebSocket):
    await websocket.accept()
    try:
        while True:
            data = await websocket.receive_text()
            await websocket.send_text(f"Message received: {data}")
    except WebSocketDisconnect:
        print("Client disconnected")

WebSocket with Dependencies

from fastapi import WebSocket, Depends, Query, Cookie, WebSocketException, status

async def get_cookie_or_token(
    websocket: WebSocket,
    session: str | None = Cookie(None),
    token: str | None = Query(None),
):
    if session is None and token is None:
        raise WebSocketException(code=status.WS_1008_POLICY_VIOLATION)
    return session or token

@app.websocket("/ws/{item_id}")
async def websocket_endpoint(
    websocket: WebSocket,
    item_id: str,
    q: int | None = None,
    cookie_or_token: str = Depends(get_cookie_or_token),
):
    await websocket.accept()
    try:
        while True:
            data = await websocket.receive_text()
            await websocket.send_text(
                f"Session: {cookie_or_token}, Item: {item_id}, Data: {data}"
            )
    except WebSocketDisconnect:
        print(f"Client {item_id} disconnected")

WebSocket Connection Manager

from typing import List

class ConnectionManager:
    def __init__(self):
        self.active_connections: List[WebSocket] = []

    async def connect(self, websocket: WebSocket):
        await websocket.accept()
        self.active_connections.append(websocket)

    def disconnect(self, websocket: WebSocket):
        self.active_connections.remove(websocket)

    async def send_personal_message(self, message: str, websocket: WebSocket):
        await websocket.send_text(message)

    async def broadcast(self, message: str):
        for connection in self.active_connections:
            await connection.send_text(message)

manager = ConnectionManager()

@app.websocket("/ws/{client_id}")
async def websocket_endpoint(websocket: WebSocket, client_id: int):
    await manager.connect(websocket)
    try:
        while True:
            data = await websocket.receive_text()
            await manager.send_personal_message(f"You wrote: {data}", websocket)
            await manager.broadcast(f"Client #{client_id} says: {data}")
    except WebSocketDisconnect:
        manager.disconnect(websocket)
        await manager.broadcast(f"Client #{client_id} left the chat")

Database Integration

SQLAlchemy with Async

from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import AsyncSession, create_async_engine
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker
from sqlalchemy import Column, Integer, String

DATABASE_URL = "postgresql+asyncpg://user:password@localhost/dbname"

engine = create_async_engine(DATABASE_URL, echo=True)
async_session_maker = sessionmaker(
    engine, class_=AsyncSession, expire_on_commit=False
)
Base = declarative_base()

class User(Base):
    __tablename__ = "users"

    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True, index=True)
    email = Column(String, unique=True, index=True)
    username = Column(String, unique=True, index=True)

async def get_db() -> AsyncSession:
    async with async_session_maker() as session:
        try:
            yield session
        finally:
            await session.close()

@app.get("/users/{user_id}")
async def read_user(user_id: int, db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db)):
    result = await db.execute(select(User).filter(User.id == user_id))
    user = result.scalars().first()
    if user is None:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="User not found")
    return user

MongoDB with Motor

from motor.motor_asyncio import AsyncIOMotorClient
from fastapi import Depends

MONGODB_URL = "mongodb://localhost:27017"
client = AsyncIOMotorClient(MONGODB_URL)
database = client.mydatabase

async def get_database():
    return database

@app.post("/items/")
async def create_item(item: Item, db = Depends(get_database)):
    result = await db.items.insert_one(item.dict())
    return {"id": str(result.inserted_id)}

@app.get("/items/{item_id}")
async def read_item(item_id: str, db = Depends(get_database)):
    from bson import ObjectId
    item = await db.items.find_one({"_id": ObjectId(item_id)})
    if item is None:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Item not found")
    item["_id"] = str(item["_id"])
    return item

Error Handling

Custom Exception Handlers

from fastapi import FastAPI, Request
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse

class UnicornException(Exception):
    def __init__(self, name: str):
        self.name = name

@app.exception_handler(UnicornException)
async def unicorn_exception_handler(request: Request, exc: UnicornException):
    return JSONResponse(
        status_code=418,
        content={"message": f"Oops! {exc.name} did something wrong."},
    )

@app.get("/unicorns/{name}")
async def read_unicorn(name: str):
    if name == "yolo":
        raise UnicornException(name=name)
    return {"unicorn_name": name}

Override Default Exception Handlers

from fastapi.exceptions import RequestValidationError
from fastapi.responses import PlainTextResponse

@app.exception_handler(RequestValidationError)
async def validation_exception_handler(request: Request, exc: RequestValidationError):
    return PlainTextResponse(str(exc), status_code=400)

Testing

Test Setup with TestClient

from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
from main import app

client = TestClient(app)

def test_read_main():
    response = client.get("/")
    assert response.status_code == 200
    assert response.json() == {"message": "Hello World"}

def test_create_item():
    response = client.post(
        "/items/",
        json={"name": "Foo", "price": 45.2}
    )
    assert response.status_code == 201
    assert response.json()["name"] == "Foo"

def test_read_item():
    response = client.get("/items/1")
    assert response.status_code == 200
    assert "name" in response.json()

Testing with Dependencies

from fastapi import Depends

async def override_get_db():
    return {"test": "database"}

app.dependency_overrides[get_db] = override_get_db

def test_with_dependency():
    response = client.get("/items/")
    assert response.status_code == 200
    # Uses overridden dependency

Async Testing

import pytest
from httpx import AsyncClient
from main import app

@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_read_items():
    async with AsyncClient(app=app, base_url="http://test") as ac:
        response = await ac.get("/items/")
    assert response.status_code == 200
    assert isinstance(response.json(), list)

Production Deployment

Docker Configuration

Dockerfile:

FROM python:3.11-slim

WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

COPY ./app /app

CMD ["uvicorn", "main:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8000"]

Multi-stage Build:

FROM python:3.11-slim as builder

WORKDIR /app
COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --user --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

FROM python:3.11-slim

WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /root/.local /root/.local
COPY ./app /app

ENV PATH=/root/.local/bin:$PATH

CMD ["uvicorn", "main:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8000", "--workers", "4"]

docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.8'

services:
  api:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@db:5432/mydb
      - REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379
    depends_on:
      - db
      - redis
    volumes:
      - ./app:/app
    command: uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --reload

  db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=user
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password
      - POSTGRES_DB=mydb
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"

volumes:
  postgres_data:

Kubernetes Deployment

deployment.yaml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: fastapi-service
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: fastapi
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: fastapi
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: fastapi
        image: myregistry/fastapi-app:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8000
        env:
        - name: DATABASE_URL
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: db-secret
              key: url
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: "256Mi"
            cpu: "250m"
          limits:
            memory: "512Mi"
            cpu: "500m"
        livenessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: /health
            port: 8000
          initialDelaySeconds: 30
          periodSeconds: 10
        readinessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: /ready
            port: 8000
          initialDelaySeconds: 5
          periodSeconds: 5
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: fastapi-service
spec:
  selector:
    app: fastapi
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 80
    targetPort: 8000
  type: LoadBalancer

Environment Configuration

from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings
from functools import lru_cache

class Settings(BaseSettings):
    app_name: str = "FastAPI Microservice"
    database_url: str
    redis_url: str
    secret_key: str
    algorithm: str = "HS256"
    access_token_expire_minutes: int = 30

    class Config:
        env_file = ".env"

@lru_cache()
def get_settings():
    return Settings()

@app.get("/info")
async def info(settings: Settings = Depends(get_settings)):
    return {"app_name": settings.app_name}

Health Checks

@app.get("/health")
async def health_check():
    return {"status": "healthy"}

@app.get("/ready")
async def readiness_check(db = Depends(get_db)):
    try:
        # Check database connectivity
        await db.execute("SELECT 1")
        return {"status": "ready"}
    except Exception as e:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=503, detail="Service not ready")

Monitoring & Logging

Structured Logging

import logging
import json
from datetime import datetime

class JSONFormatter(logging.Formatter):
    def format(self, record):
        log_data = {
            "timestamp": datetime.utcnow().isoformat(),
            "level": record.levelname,
            "message": record.getMessage(),
            "module": record.module,
            "function": record.funcName,
        }
        return json.dumps(log_data)

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
handler = logging.StreamHandler()
handler.setFormatter(JSONFormatter())
logger.addHandler(handler)
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

@app.middleware("http")
async def log_requests(request: Request, call_next):
    logger.info(f"Request: {request.method} {request.url}")
    response = await call_next(request)
    logger.info(f"Response: {response.status_code}")
    return response

Prometheus Metrics

from prometheus_client import Counter, Histogram, generate_latest
from fastapi.responses import Response
import time

REQUEST_COUNT = Counter(
    'http_requests_total',
    'Total HTTP requests',
    ['method', 'endpoint', 'status']
)

REQUEST_DURATION = Histogram(
    'http_request_duration_seconds',
    'HTTP request duration',
    ['method', 'endpoint']
)

@app.middleware("http")
async def prometheus_middleware(request: Request, call_next):
    start_time = time.time()
    response = await call_next(request)
    duration = time.time() - start_time

    REQUEST_COUNT.labels(
        method=request.method,
        endpoint=request.url.path,
        status=response.status_code
    ).inc()

    REQUEST_DURATION.labels(
        method=request.method,
        endpoint=request.url.path
    ).observe(duration)

    return response

@app.get("/metrics")
async def metrics():
    return Response(generate_latest(), media_type="text/plain")

Best Practices

1. Project Structure

fastapi-service/
├── app/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── config.py
│   ├── dependencies.py
│   ├── models/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── user.py
│   │   └── item.py
│   ├── schemas/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── user.py
│   │   └── item.py
│   ├── routers/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── users.py
│   │   └── items.py
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── user_service.py
│   │   └── item_service.py
│   └── database.py
├── tests/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── test_users.py
│   └── test_items.py
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── requirements.txt
└── .env

2. Separation of Concerns

models.py - Database models:

from sqlalchemy import Column, Integer, String
from .database import Base

class User(Base):
    __tablename__ = "users"
    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True, index=True)
    email = Column(String, unique=True, index=True)

schemas.py - Pydantic schemas:

from pydantic import BaseModel, EmailStr

class UserCreate(BaseModel):
    email: EmailStr
    password: str

class UserResponse(BaseModel):
    id: int
    email: EmailStr

    class Config:
        from_attributes = True

services.py - Business logic:

from sqlalchemy.orm import Session

class UserService:
    def __init__(self, db: Session):
        self.db = db

    async def create_user(self, user_data: UserCreate):
        # Business logic here
        pass

routers.py - API endpoints:

from fastapi import APIRouter, Depends

router = APIRouter(prefix="/users", tags=["users"])

@router.post("/", response_model=UserResponse)
async def create_user(user: UserCreate, service: UserService = Depends()):
    return await service.create_user(user)

3. Security Best Practices

• Always use HTTPS in production
• Implement rate limiting
• Validate and sanitize all inputs
• Use dependency injection for auth
• Store secrets in environment variables
• Implement CORS properly
• Use security headers
• Hash passwords with bcrypt/argon2
• Implement JWT token expiration
• Use OAuth2 scopes for authorization

4. Performance Optimization

• Use async/await for I/O operations
• Implement caching (Redis)
• Use database connection pooling
• Paginate large responses
• Compress responses (gzip)
• Use CDN for static assets
• Implement database indexes
• Use background tasks for heavy operations
• Monitor with APM tools
• Load test before production

5. API Documentation

FastAPI automatically generates OpenAPI documentation, but you can enhance it:

app = FastAPI(
    title="My Microservice API",
    description="Production-ready microservice with FastAPI",
    version="1.0.0",
    terms_of_service="http://example.com/terms/",
    contact={
        "name": "API Support",
        "url": "http://example.com/support",
        "email": "support@example.com",
    },
    license_info={
        "name": "Apache 2.0",
        "url": "https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html",
    },
)

@app.get(
    "/items/",
    response_model=List[Item],
    summary="List all items",
    description="Retrieve a paginated list of items from the database",
    response_description="List of items with pagination metadata",
)
async def list_items(
    skip: int = Query(0, description="Number of items to skip"),
    limit: int = Query(100, description="Maximum number of items to return"),
):
    """
    List items with pagination support.

    - **skip**: Number of items to skip (for pagination)
    - **limit**: Maximum number of items to return
    """
    return await get_items(skip=skip, limit=limit)

Common Patterns & Examples

See EXAMPLES.md for 15+ detailed, production-ready examples covering:

• CRUD operations with async databases
• Authentication flows
• File upload handling
• Caching strategies
• Rate limiting
• Event-driven architectures
• Testing patterns
• Deployment configurations
• And more...

Skill Version: 1.0.0 Last Updated: October 2025 Skill Category: Backend Development, Microservices, Python, REST APIs Compatible With: FastAPI 0.100+, Python 3.7+, Pydantic 2.0+