Scalable Python backend: Building a containerized FastAPI Application with uv, Docker, and pre-commit: a step-by-step guide

In today's containerized world, efficient backend application deployment is crucial. FastAPI, a popular Python framework, excels at creating fast, high-performance APIs. We'll use uv, a package manager, to streamline dependency management.

uv

Assuming you've installed uv and Docker, let's create our app: uv init simple-app. This generates:

<code>simple-app/
├── .python-version
├── README.md
├── hello.py
└── pyproject.toml</code>

pyproject.toml holds project metadata:

<code class="language-toml">[project]
name = "simple-app"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Add your description here"
readme = "README.md"
requires-python = ">=3.11"
dependencies = []</code>

Add project dependencies to pyproject.toml:

<code class="language-toml">dependencies = [
    "fastapi[standard]=0.114.2",
    "python-multipart=0.0.7",
    "email-validator=2.1.0",
    "pydantic>2.0",
    "SQLAlchemy>2.0",
    "alembic=1.12.1",
]

[tool.uv]
dev-dependencies = [
    "pytest=7.4.3",
    "mypy=1.8.0",
    "ruff=0.2.2",
    "pre-commit=4.0.0",
]</code>

The [tool.uv] section defines development dependencies excluded during deployment. Run uv sync to:

1. Create uv.lock.
2. Create a virtual environment (.venv). uv downloads a Python interpreter if needed.
3. Install dependencies.

FastAPI

Create the FastAPI application structure:

<code>recipe-app/
├── app/
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── ...
├── .python-version
├── README.md
└── pyproject.toml</code>

In app/main.py:

<code class="language-python">from fastapi import FastAPI
from pydantic import BaseModel

app = FastAPI()

class Hello(BaseModel):
    message: str

@app.get("/", response_model=Hello)
async def hello() -> Hello:
    return Hello(message="Hi, I am using FastAPI")</code>

Run with: uv run fastapi dev app/main.py. You'll see output similar to:

Access it at https://www.php.cn/link/c099034308f2a231c24281de338726c1.

Docker

Let's Dockerize. We'll develop within containers. Add a Dockerfile:

<code class="language-dockerfile">FROM python:3.11-slim

ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1

COPY --from=ghcr.io/astral-sh/uv:0.5.11 /uv /uvx /bin/

ENV UV_COMPILE_BYTE=1
ENV UV_LINK_MODE=copy

WORKDIR /app

ENV PATH="/app/.venv/bin:$PATH"

COPY ./pyproject.toml ./uv.lock ./.python-version /app/

RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache/uv \
    --mount=type=bind,source=uv.lock,target=uv.lock \
    --mount=type=bind,source=pyproject.toml,target=pyproject.toml \
    uv sync --frozen --no-install-project --no-dev

COPY ./app /app/app

RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache/uv \
    uv sync --frozen --no-dev

CMD ["fastapi", "dev", "app/main.py", "--host", "0.0.0.0"]</code>

For easier container management, use docker-compose.yaml:

<code class="language-yaml">services:
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    working_dir: /app
    volumes:
      - ./app:/app/app
    ports:
      - "${APP_PORT:-8000}:8000"
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=${DATABASE_URL}
    depends_on:
      - postgres

  postgres:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: ${POSTGRES_DB}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  postgres_data: {}</code>

Create a .env file with environment variables. Run with: docker compose up --build.

[tool.uv] and Development Tools

The [tool.uv] section in pyproject.toml lists development tools:

• pytest: Testing framework (out of scope here).
• mypy: Static type checker. Run manually: uv run mypy app.
• ruff: Fast linter (replaces multiple tools).
• pre-commit: Manages pre-commit hooks. Create .pre-commit-config.yaml:

<code class="language-yaml">repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks
    rev: v4.4.0
    hooks:
      - id: check-added-large-files
      - id: check-toml
      - id: check-yaml
        args:
          - --unsafe
      - id: end-of-file-fixer
      - id: trailing-whitespace
  - repo: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff-pre-commit
    rev: v0.8.6
    hooks:
      - id: ruff
        args: [--fix]
      - id: ruff-format</code>

Add pyproject.toml configurations for mypy and ruff (example provided in the original text). Install a VS Code Ruff extension for real-time linting. This setup ensures consistent code style, type checking, and pre-commit checks for a streamlined workflow.

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