Lesson 9: Setting up a FastAPI project for our new Modecar static website #FastAPI #PythonWeb

In this tutorial, we will learn how to set up a new FastAPI project for a static website using the FastAPI web framework in Python. FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints.

Step 1: Install FastAPI and Uvicorn

First, we need to install FastAPI and Uvicorn, an ASGI server that allows you to run FastAPI applications. Open your terminal and run the following commands:

pip install fastapi
pip install uvicorn

Step 2: Create a new directory for your project

Next, create a new directory for your FastAPI project. You can do this by running the following command in your terminal:

mkdir my_fastapi_project
cd my_fastapi_project

Step 3: Set up your project structure

Inside your project directory, create a new directory for your static website files. You can name this directory static or public. Within this directory, you can add your HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other static files for your website.

mkdir static

Step 4: Create a main.py file

Now, create a new Python file named main.py in your project directory. This file will contain the FastAPI application code. You can do this by running the following command:

touch main.py

Step 5: Write your FastAPI application code

Open the main.py file in your favorite code editor and add the following code to set up a basic FastAPI application that serves your static website files:

from fastapi import FastAPI
from fastapi.responses import HTMLResponse
from fastapi.staticfiles import StaticFiles

app = FastAPI()

# Serve the static website files
app.mount("/", StaticFiles(directory="static"), name="static")

# Define a route to serve the index.html file
@app.get("/", response_class=HTMLResponse)
async def read_root():
    return FileResponse("static/index.html")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import uvicorn
    uvicorn.run(app, host="0.0.0.0", port=8000)

Step 6: Run your FastAPI application

To run your FastAPI application, go back to your terminal and run the following command:

uvicorn main:app --reload

This will start the Uvicorn ASGI server and run your FastAPI application. You should see output indicating that the server is running and serving your static website files.

Step 7: Access your website

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8000/ to access your static website served by the FastAPI application. You should see your website displayed in the browser.

That’s it! You have successfully set up a new FastAPI project for a static website. You can now further customize your website by adding more HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to the static directory and updating your FastAPI application code as needed.

I hope this tutorial was helpful in getting you started with FastAPI for building static websites. Enjoy building your projects with FastAPI and Python!