Intro
In today's blog post I would like to show you how I approach every new Python backend API project setup.
This blog post includes:
- project structure
- tools
- best practices
- automation
Let's go! π
Poetry
Poetry in my opinion is the best Python packaging and dependency management tool.
I'm using it in all of my projects since 2019.
If you have not heard about Poetry yet, I highly recommend reading about this tool.
In my opinion, it is the best option that we currently have on the Python market.
Project creation
To create a new project with poetry you need to run this command:
$ poetry new <your-project-name>
Project structure
βββ .docker
βββ .gitignore
βββ .pre-commit-config.yaml
βββ Makefile
βββ README.md
βββ docs
β βββ adr
β β βββ adr-001-example_adr.md
β βββ api
β βββ openapi.yaml
βββ http_requests
β βββ http-client.env.json
β βββ ping.http
βββ iac
βββ pyproject.toml
βββ setup.cfg
βββ src
β βββ building_blocks
β β βββ logger.py
β βββ domain_module_a
β β βββ application
β β βββ domain
β β βββ infrastructure
β βββ domain_module_b
β βββ domain_module_c
βββ tests
βββ domain_module_a
βββ domain_module_b
βββ domain_module_c
I will explain the purpose of each directory, starting from the top.
π .docker
If my project uses docker, I put all docker-related files here.
For example: init scripts for localstack.
π docs
Inside this directory, I keep all things related to the project's documentation.
The openapi.yaml
file resides inside api
sub-directory.
Inside the adr
sub-directory, I keep the project's ADRs.
I wrote a separate article about the ADRs, you can read it here.
π http_requests
I use IntelliJ HTTP Client
and here is where I keep request's definitions.
If you have not heard about this tool, I recommend you check it out. Having this, you do not have to have any
additional API clients like postman or insomnia.
π iac
If my project uses Infrastructure as code
here is where I keep terraform
or other files.
π src
Here I keep the code responsible for the application itself. This directory contains sub-directories.
I do not like splitting the project into technical layers. In opposition to that, I follow the convention
where each module is named accordingly and responsible for the business domain that it belongs to.
One of the benefits of it is that each module can have a different type of application architecture.
As you can see in the domain_module_a
the separation is done by hexagonal architecture rules.
It has no impact on the other modules where such separation is not needed.
You can see there is a module called building_blocks
.
Inside it, I keep all the utilities needed in the project, like a logger, serializers, and so on.
I did not make up this name, I borrowed it from this repo.
README.md
It is very important to take care of the README file because:
- it is the first thing that will be shown after opening the project's repo
- it allows new members of the team to start working with the project more smoothly
Here is my proposition for the README
file
# <project_name>
Quick project description.
## Table of contents
* [Stack](#stack)
* [Prerequisites](#prerequisites)
* [Setup](#setup)
* [Intellij / PyCharm configuration](#intellij-/-pycharm-configuration)
* [Tests](#tests)
* [CI/CD](#ci/cd)
* [Monitoring](#monitoring)
* [ADR](#adr)
* [HTTP requests](#http-requests)
## Stack
Description of the technology stack used in the project.
## Prerequisites
Information about all needed tools you have to install before you start the development.
## Setup
Description of how to setup the project to be able to start the development.
## Architecture
Description of the project's architecture. Diagrams, maps, etc.
## Intellij / PyCharm configuration
Info on how to setup a project inside Intellij or other IDE.
## Tests
Description of how to run the tests.
## CI/CD
Description of what the CI/CD process looks like and how it works. What is the deployment strategy, etc.
## Monitoring
Information about tools used to monitor the application, how to use them, what is the purpose, how to access etc.
## ADR
Information about ADRs.
## HTTP requests
Information about IntelliJ HTTP client.
You can find the complete README with some example descriptions for each section here:
https://github.com/szymon6927/szymonmiks.pl/tree/master/blog/examples/example-project
Tools
Here is the list of tools that I always add while creating a new project:
- pytest
- black
- mypy
- flake8
- pytest-cov
- isort
- pylint
- pre-commit
- bandit
- openapi-spec-validator
- responses
- ipython
If my project uses AWS services, I also install moto library.
I use pyproject.toml
file to keep the config for each of them in one place.
This is what it looks like:
[tool.black]
line-length = 120
target-version = ["py39"]
[tool.coverage.report]
exclude_lines = [
"pragma: no cover",
"def __repr__",
"raise AssertionError",
"raise NotImplementedError",
"pass",
"if 0:",
"if __name__ == .__main__.:",
"nocov",
"if TYPE_CHECKING:",
]
fail_under = 80
show_missing = true
[tool.coverage.run]
branch = true
omit = [
"tests/*"
]
[tool.isort]
combine_as_imports = "true"
force_grid_wrap = 0
include_trailing_comma = "true"
known_first_party = "src"
line_length = 120
multi_line_output = 3
[tool.mypy]
disallow_untyped_defs = true
follow_imports = "silent"
ignore_missing_imports = true
python_version = "3.9"
warn_return_any = true
warn_unused_configs = true
[tool.pylint.BASIC]
good-names = "id,i,j,k"
[tool.pylint.DESIGN]
max-args = 5
max-attributes = 8
min-public-methods = 1
[tool.pylint.FORMAT]
max-line-length = 120
[tool.pylint."MESSAGES CONTROL"]
disable = "missing-docstring, line-too-long, logging-fstring-interpolation, duplicate-code"
[tool.pylint.MISCELLANEOUS]
notes = "XXX"
[tool.pylint.SIMILARITIES]
ignore-comments = "yes"
ignore-docstrings = "yes"
ignore-imports = "yes"
min-similarity-lines = 6
[tool.pytest.ini_options]
addopts = "-v --cov=src --cov-report term-missing --no-cov-on-fail"
testpaths = ["tests"]
The only exception is flake8
which does not support config inside pyproject.toml
so we have to have an additional file
which is setup.cfg
.
[flake8]
ignore = E501, W503, E203
max-line-length = 120
pre-commit
pre-commit allows you to add git hooks that will execute before you add your commit.
This is the config file that I use in my projects:
repos:
- repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks
rev: v4.3.0
hooks:
- id: trailing-whitespace
- id: check-merge-conflict
- id: check-yaml
args: [--unsafe]
- id: check-json
- id: detect-private-key
- id: end-of-file-fixer
- repo: https://github.com/timothycrosley/isort
rev: 5.10.1
hooks:
- id: isort
- repo: https://github.com/psf/black
rev: 22.8.0
hooks:
- id: black
- repo: https://gitlab.com/pycqa/flake8
rev: 3.9.2
hooks:
- id: flake8
- repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/mirrors-mypy
rev: v0.971
hooks:
- id: mypy
args: [ --warn-unused-configs, --ignore-missing-imports, --disallow-untyped-defs, --follow-imports=silent, --install-types, --non-interactive ]
Makefile
I like using Make to automate stuff in my projects.
Below you can see the Makefile that I use.
.DEFAULT_GOAL := all
toml_sort:
toml-sort pyproject.toml --all --in-place
isort:
poetry run isort .
black:
poetry run black .
flake8:
poetry run flake8 .
pylint:
poetry run pylint src
dockerfile_linter:
docker run --rm -i hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile
validate_openapi_schema:
poetry run openapi-spec-validator example-project/docs/api/openapi.yaml
mypy:
poetry run mypy --install-types --non-interactive .
audit_dependencies:
poetry export --without-hashes -f requirements.txt | poetry run safety check --full-report --stdin
bandit:
poetry run bandit -r . -x ./tests,./test
test:
poetry run pytest
lint: toml_sort isort black flake8 pylint mypy validate_openapi_schema
audit: audit_dependencies bandit
tests: test
all: lint audit tests
Complete example
You can find the complete example on my GitHub π
https://github.com/szymon6927/szymonmiks.pl/tree/master/blog/examples/example-project
Summary
I hope it was useful to you, and I hope that after reading this article you adopt some concepts for your project.
If you have a different opinion, please let me know. I would like to know what you think about it.
Top comments (1)
Nice post :)
You can also make your example repo a template (Settings --> General --> Template), which will make it easier to deploy new projects with 1-click :)