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This module is your guided path from zero to a fully working, production-ready FastAPI backend. You’ll start by understanding how the web actually works — the HTTP protocol, request-response cycles, and status codes — and then progressively build up to writing authenticated, database-backed REST APIs. Whether you’ve touched Python before or are brand-new to backend development, this module assumes only a basic familiarity with Python and teaches everything else step by step.

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What You’ll Build

Throughout this module, you’ll develop an Employee Management System (EMS) API — a realistic project that grows with you as you learn. By the end, it handles authentication, database persistence, modular routing, and structured error responses.

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Module Contents

How the Web Works

Understand HTTP, the client-server model, request anatomy, status codes, and REST API conventions.

Intro to FastAPI

Install FastAPI, write your first application, and run it locally with Uvicorn.

Fundamentals

Learn routing, path/query parameters, request bodies, response models, and the FastAPI architecture.

Request Handling

Master path parameters, query parameters, request bodies, headers, and the Annotated validation style.

Response Handling

Control outbound data with response models, HTTP status codes, and custom response classes.

Data Validation & Models

Separate request, internal, and response models cleanly, and use Field, Query, and Path validators.

Local CRUD

Build a fully functional CRUD API using in-memory dictionaries before adding a real database.

API Documentation

Customise Swagger UI and ReDoc with metadata, route summaries, and field descriptions.

APIRouter

Split routes into dedicated router files with prefixes, tags, and a clean folder layout.

Exception Handling

Handle HTTP exceptions, validation errors, and unexpected runtime errors with global handlers.

Dependency Injection

Understand IoC and DI principles, then use FastAPI’s Depends() to inject reusable resources.

Modularisation

Refactor into a Controller–Service–Repository architecture for scalable, testable applications.

SQL & ORM

Replace in-memory storage with a real SQL database using SQLModel and SQLAlchemy.

JWT Auth

Secure your API with JSON Web Tokens, login endpoints, and role-based access control.

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Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have the following in place:
  • Python 3.10+ installed on your machine
  • A terminal and a code editor (VS Code is recommended)
  • Basic Python knowledge — functions, classes, and dictionaries
You do not need prior web development experience. Everything from HTTP basics to database integration is covered in this module.

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Quick-Start Installation

1

Create a virtual environment

2

Activate the environment

3

Install FastAPI and Uvicorn

4

Create main.py and run it

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs to see your first API docs. 🎉
Use uv as a faster alternative to pip. Install it with pip install uv, then replace pip install with uv pip install throughout the course.