API Engineering Course

This repository is a beginner-to-production course for designing, building, testing, and operating APIs.

The new course uses Python, FastAPI, SQLite, and a TaskBox capstone. It includes runnable labs, generated OpenAPI contracts, authentication, webhooks, observability, and deployment exercises.

Start here

1. Install Postman, Python 3.13+, Node 24 LTS, and uv.
2. Run uv sync --all-groups --frozen.
3. Start TaskBox with uv run uvicorn taskbox.main:app --reload.
4. Open the API docs at http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs.
5. Complete required Prerequisite Lab 00: Postman foundations.
6. Follow the 43-hour sequence in course/course-map.yml, beginning Lab 01 only after the prerequisite.
7. Start the course site with cd site && npm ci && npm run dev.

Local site routes start at http://localhost:4321/. The GitHub Pages build uses /API/, so the deployed setup page is https://ialimustufa.github.io/API/setup/.

Verify everything

uv run pytest
uv run ruff check .
uv run python scripts/validate_course_map.py
uv run python scripts/check_openapi_contract.py
cd site
npm ci
npm run check
npm run build

Run with Docker

The root Compose stack deploys the SQLite-first TaskBox API with a persistent Docker volume:

export TASKBOX_JWT_SECRET="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
export TASKBOX_WEBHOOK_SECRET="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
docker compose up --build
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/healthz
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/readyz

Compose refuses to start without both secrets, and the production image rejects the course placeholder values. Store long random values in .env instead of exporting them when that better fits your local workflow. The PostgreSQL transition is a separate required exercise in course/labs/07-operations.

License

Authored course and application code is MIT licensed. Historical third-party material retains its original provenance; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Legacy

The original course materials are preserved under legacy/.