# Middleware

You can add middleware to **FastAPI** applications.

A "middleware" is a function that works with every **request** before it is processed by any specific *path operation*. And also with every **response** before returning it.

* It takes each **request** that comes to your application.
* It can then do something to that **request** or run any needed code.

<div class="termy">

```console
$ python -m pip install --upgrade pip

---> 100%
```

</div>

!!! tip
    Every time you install a new package with `pip` under that environment, activate the environment again.

name: Test

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
  pull_request:
    types:
      - opened
      - synchronize
  schedule:
    # cron every week on monday
    - cron: "0 0 * * 1"

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Dump GitHub context
        env:
          GITHUB_CONTEXT: ${{ toJson(github) }}
        run: echo "$GITHUB_CONTEXT"
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

In this case, it might not be a problem, because it's the same user sending the password.

But if we use the same model for another *path operation*, we could be sending our user's passwords to every client.

!!! danger
    Never store the plain password of a user or send it in a response like this, unless you know all the caveats and you know what you are doing.

## Add an output model

These features are what Marshmallow was built to provide. It is a great library, and I have used it a lot before.

But it was created before there existed Python type hints. So, to define every <abbr title="the definition of how data should be formed">schema</abbr> you need to use specific utils and classes provided by Marshmallow.

!!! check "Inspired **FastAPI** to"

If you have an API that does a comparable amount of computations every time and you have a lot of clients, then the **CPU utilization** will probably *also be stable* (instead of constantly going up and down quickly).

### Examples of Replication Tools and Strategies

* 👷 Upgrade GitHub Action Latest Changes. PR [#2184](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/2184) by [@tiangolo](https://github.com/tiangolo).
* 👷 Set GitHub Action Label Approved to run daily, not every minute. PR [#2163](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/2163) by [@tiangolo](https://github.com/tiangolo).

In an advanced scenario where you know you need the dependency to be called at every step (possibly multiple times) in the same request instead of using the "cached" value, you can set the parameter `use_cache=False` when using `Depends`:

=== "Python 3.8+"

    ```Python hl_lines="1"

labels: [question]
body:
  - type: markdown
    attributes:
      value: |
        Thanks for your interest in FastAPI! 🚀

        Please follow these instructions, fill every question, and do every step. 🙏

        I'm asking this because answering questions and solving problems in GitHub is what consumes most of the time.

```

### Cache the OpenAPI schema

You can use the property `.openapi_schema` as a "cache", to store your generated schema.

That way, your application won't have to generate the schema every time a user opens your API docs.

It will be generated only once, and then the same cached schema will be used for the next requests.

```Python hl_lines="13-14  25-26"
{!../../../docs_src/extending_openapi/tutorial001.py!}