Python Backend Stack

Live docs: Add use context7 to prompt for up-to-date FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Pydantic documentation.

Tooling (2025)

Tool	Purpose	Why
uv	Package manager	10-100x faster than pip
ruff	Linter + formatter	Replaces black, isort, flake8
FastAPI	Web framework	Async, auto-docs, Pydantic
SQLAlchemy 2.0	ORM	Async support, type hints
Pydantic v2	Validation	5-50x faster than v1
pytest	Testing	See testing.md

Project Setup

# Initialize
uv init my-api
cd my-api
uv add fastapi sqlalchemy[asyncio] pydantic pydantic-settings
uv add --dev ruff pytest pytest-asyncio httpx

# pyproject.toml
[tool.ruff]
line-length = 100
select = ["E", "F", "I", "N", "UP", "B", "A", "C4", "SIM"]

[tool.ruff.format]
quote-style = "double"

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
asyncio_mode = "auto"

Project Structure

src/
├── main.py              # FastAPI app
├── config.py            # Settings (pydantic-settings)
├── db/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── engine.py        # Async engine + session
│   └── models.py        # SQLAlchemy models
├── api/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── deps.py          # Dependencies (get_db, get_user)
│   └── routes/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── auth.py
│       └── users.py
├── schemas/             # Pydantic models
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── user.py
└── services/            # Business logic
    └── user.py
tests/
├── conftest.py
└── test_users.py

FastAPI Patterns

Basic App

from fastapi import FastAPI
from contextlib import asynccontextmanager

@asynccontextmanager
async def lifespan(app: FastAPI):
    # Startup
    await init_db()
    yield
    # Shutdown
    await close_db()

app = FastAPI(lifespan=lifespan)

Route with Dependencies

from fastapi import APIRouter, Depends, HTTPException, status
from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import AsyncSession

router = APIRouter(prefix="/users", tags=["users"])

@router.get("/{user_id}", response_model=UserOut)
async def get_user(
    user_id: int,
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
    current_user: User = Depends(get_current_user),
):
    user = await db.get(User, user_id)
    if not user:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="User not found")
    return user

Pydantic Schemas

from pydantic import BaseModel, EmailStr, Field
from datetime import datetime

class UserCreate(BaseModel):
    email: EmailStr
    name: str = Field(min_length=1, max_length=100)

class UserOut(BaseModel):
    id: int
    email: str
    name: str
    created_at: datetime

    model_config = {"from_attributes": True}  # For ORM mode

Settings

from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings
from functools import lru_cache

class Settings(BaseSettings):
    database_url: str
    secret_key: str
    debug: bool = False

    model_config = {"env_file": ".env"}

@lru_cache
def get_settings() -> Settings:
    return Settings()

SQLAlchemy 2.0 Async

Engine Setup

from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import create_async_engine, AsyncSession
from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker, DeclarativeBase

engine = create_async_engine(
    "postgresql+asyncpg://user:pass@localhost/db",
    echo=False,
    pool_size=5,
    max_overflow=10,
)

AsyncSessionLocal = sessionmaker(
    engine, class_=AsyncSession, expire_on_commit=False
)

class Base(DeclarativeBase):
    pass

Models

from sqlalchemy import String, ForeignKey
from sqlalchemy.orm import Mapped, mapped_column, relationship
from datetime import datetime

class User(Base):
    __tablename__ = "users"

    id: Mapped[int] = mapped_column(primary_key=True)
    email: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(String(255), unique=True, index=True)
    name: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(String(100))
    created_at: Mapped[datetime] = mapped_column(default=datetime.utcnow)

    posts: Mapped[list["Post"]] = relationship(back_populates="author")

Database Dependency

from typing import AsyncGenerator

async def get_db() -> AsyncGenerator[AsyncSession, None]:
    async with AsyncSessionLocal() as session:
        try:
            yield session
            await session.commit()
        except Exception:
            await session.rollback()
            raise

Queries

from sqlalchemy import select
from sqlalchemy.orm import selectinload

# Get one
user = await db.get(User, user_id)

# Query with filter
stmt = select(User).where(User.email == email)
result = await db.execute(stmt)
user = result.scalar_one_or_none()

# Eager load relationships
stmt = select(User).options(selectinload(User.posts)).where(User.id == user_id)

# Pagination
stmt = select(User).offset(skip).limit(limit).order_by(User.created_at.desc())
result = await db.execute(stmt)
users = result.scalars().all()

Error Handling

from fastapi import HTTPException, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse
from fastapi.exceptions import RequestValidationError

@app.exception_handler(RequestValidationError)
async def validation_exception_handler(request, exc):
    return JSONResponse(
        status_code=422,
        content={"error": {"code": "VALIDATION_ERROR", "details": exc.errors()}},
    )

# Custom exceptions
class NotFoundError(Exception):
    def __init__(self, resource: str, id: int):
        self.resource = resource
        self.id = id

@app.exception_handler(NotFoundError)
async def not_found_handler(request, exc):
    return JSONResponse(
        status_code=404,
        content={"error": {"message": f"{exc.resource} {exc.id} not found"}},
    )

Anti-patterns

Don't	Do Instead
pip install	uv add
black + isort + flake8	ruff
SQLAlchemy 1.x style	SQLAlchemy 2.0 with Mapped[]
Pydantic v1	Pydantic v2 (model_config, not Config)
Sync database calls	Async with asyncpg/aiosqlite
Global DB session	Dependency injection
Business logic in routes	Services layer