Build an API you can trust

TaskBox is a small, complete API that gives you room to practice the decisions that matter in real services: authentication, authorization, persistence, pagination, and webhooks.

Start with environment setup, complete Prerequisite 00: Postman foundations, then follow the numbered chapters in order. The required prerequisite appears before Lab 01 and brings the complete course to 43 hours. The course uses a deliberately small reference application so each boundary is inspectable: HTTP contracts at the edge, domain rules in the middle, and replaceable adapters at the infrastructure boundary.

What you will build

• A FastAPI service with a clean, versioned HTTP surface.
• JWT authentication and project-scoped roles.
• SQLite-first development with a PostgreSQL and Docker lab.
• Cursor pagination and signed webhook imports.

The lessons are designed to be read alongside the repository code. Each chapter names the contract first, then leaves you with a focused implementation exercise.

Persistence path

The default path is SQLite-first: run locally with one durable file, inspect constraints and transactions, and practice migrations without starting a database service. Then complete the separate PostgreSQL transition lab in course/labs/07-operations/, where Docker Compose adds a healthy database dependency and a disposable PostgreSQL instance. Root Compose is intentionally different: it runs the SQLite app on local port 8000 with a named volume.

Local site links begin at /; the deployed GitHub Pages site is prefixed with /API/.

Learning outcomes

By the end, you should be able to explain a versioned API contract, enforce project-scoped roles, persist and paginate data safely, verify signed imports, and describe a migration and readiness sequence suitable for deployment.