Setting up the development environment

The FastAPI framework is a fast, seamless, and robust Python framework but can only work on Python versions 3.6 and above. The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used in this reference is Visual Studio Code (VS Code), which is an open source tool that we can download from this site: https://code.visualstudio.com/. Just be sure to install the VSC extensions such as Python, Python for VS Code, Python Extension Pack, Python Indent, and Material Icon Theme to provide your editor syntax checking, syntax highlighting, and other editor support.

After the successful installation of Python and VS Code, we can now install FastAPI using a terminal console. To ensure correct installation, first update Python’s package installer (pip) by running this command:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

Afterward, we install the framework by running this series of commands:

pip install fastapi
pip install uvicorn[standard]
pip install python-multipart

Important note

If you need to install the complete FastAPI platform, including all optional dependencies, the appropriate command is pip install fastapi[all]. Likewise, if you want to install and utilize the full-blown uvicorn server, you should run the pip install uvicorn command. Also, install the bcrypt module for encryption-related tasks.

At this point, you should have installed all the needed FastAPI module dependencies from the pydantic and starlette module components in your Python environment. Furthermore, the python-multipart module is required to create a REST API that handles form parameters. The installed uvicorn, however, is an ASGI-based server that will run your FastAPI applications. The Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface (ASGI) server that FastAPI uses makes it the fastest Python framework at the time of writing. The uvicorn server has the capability to run both synchronous and asynchronous services.

After the installation and configuration of the essential tools, modules, and IDE, let us now start our first API implementation using the framework.