NHS-R/NHS.pycom Conference Workshop 2023: Create your own API with Python and FastAPI

Create your own API with Python and FastAPI with YiWen Hon
Monday 02nd October 2023

Workshop Content:
The objective of this workshop is to introduce Python users to the FastAPI package and show them how to build their own API, using free and open source tools. APIs are a great way of making machine learning models more accessible to a wider audience, reducing the technical barrier to entry.

We will begin with an overview of what APIs are and how they can be interrogated, and a revision of basic concepts such as the JSON data format, and how it is comprised of the lists and dict types. We will practice using the requests library to query a simple API endpoint. We will then move on to using FastAPI to build a very basic endpoint, using the Uvicorn package to test if it works on the local machine. After that, we will build a more complex API endpoint that accepts parameters, again testing if it works on the local machine. Depending on the progress of participants, we can also touch on more complex concepts such as validating parameters, POST requests, and documentation. The workshop will finish with suggestions for how the API can be made publicly available, with an overview of some hosting solutions, and common considerations such as authentication and security.

By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to:
- Query APIs using the Python requests library
- Create a basic RESTful API using FastAPI
- Test their API locally using Uvicorn.