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.
* Then it passes the **request** to be processed by the rest of the application (by some *path operation*).

    You could also use `from starlette.staticfiles import StaticFiles`.

    **FastAPI** provides the same `starlette.staticfiles` as `fastapi.staticfiles` just as a convenience for you, the developer. But it actually comes directly from Starlette.

### What is "Mounting"

"Mounting" means adding a complete "independent" application in a specific path, that then takes care of handling all the sub-paths.

It was deprecated from Starlette, but if you have code that used it, you can easily **migrate** to <a href="https://github.com/ciscorn/starlette-graphene3" class="external-link" target="_blank">starlette-graphene3</a>, that covers the same use case and has an **almost identical interface**.

!!! tip

!!! check
    Notice that the value your function received (and returned) is `3`, as a Python `int`, not a string `"3"`.

    So, with that type declaration, **FastAPI** gives you automatic request <abbr title="converting the string that comes from an HTTP request into Python data">"parsing"</abbr>.

## Data validation

The main thing you need to run a **FastAPI** application (or any other ASGI application) in a remote server machine is an ASGI server program like **Uvicorn**, this is the one that comes by default in the `fastapi` command.

There are several alternatives, including:

* <a href="https://www.uvicorn.org/" class="external-link" target="_blank">Uvicorn</a>: a high performance ASGI server.

!!! note "Technical Details"
    You could also use `from starlette.testclient import TestClient`.

    **FastAPI** provides the same `starlette.testclient` as `fastapi.testclient` just as a convenience for you, the developer. But it comes directly from Starlette.

!!! tip

We are already halfway there.

We just need to add a *path operation* for the user/client to actually send the `username` and `password`.

                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {



...
```

#### What is OpenAPI for

The OpenAPI schema is what powers the two interactive documentation systems included.

And there are dozens of alternatives, all based on OpenAPI. You could easily add any of those alternatives to your application built with **FastAPI**.

        Optional[Sequence[str]],
        Doc(
            """
            OAuth2 scopes required for the *path operation* that uses this Security
            dependency.

            The term "scope" comes from the OAuth2 specification, it seems to be
            intentionaly vague and interpretable. It normally refers to permissions,
            in cases to roles.

from fastapi import FastAPI
from pydantic import BaseModel

app = FastAPI()


class Item(BaseModel):
    name: str
    description: str


items = [
    {"name": "Foo", "description": "There comes my hero"},
    {"name": "Red", "description": "It's my aeroplane"},
]


@app.get("/items/", response_model=List[Item])
async def read_items():