It used custom types in its declarations instead of standard Python types, but it was still a huge step forward.

It also was one of the first frameworks to generate a custom schema declaring the whole API in JSON.

It was not based on a standard like OpenAPI and JSON Schema. So it wouldn't be straightforward to integrate it with other tools, like Swagger UI. But again, it was a very innovative idea.

* **FastAPI**:
    * The same way that Starlette uses Uvicorn and cannot be faster than it, **FastAPI** uses Starlette, so it cannot be faster than 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 can check it at <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs" class="external-link" target="_blank">http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs</a>:

<img src="/img/tutorial/behind-a-proxy/image01.png">

But if we access the docs UI at the "official" URL using the proxy with port `9999`, at `/api/v1/docs`, it works correctly! 🎉

```console
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

---> 100%
```

</div>

It will install all the dependencies and your local FastAPI in your local environment.

### Using your local FastAPI

If you create a Python file that imports and uses FastAPI, and run it with the Python from your local environment, it will use your cloned local FastAPI source code.

It is based on <a href="https://www.python-httpx.org" class="external-link" target="_blank">HTTPX</a>, which in turn is designed based on Requests, so it's very familiar and intuitive.

With it, you can use <a href="https://docs.pytest.org/" class="external-link" target="_blank">pytest</a> directly with **FastAPI**.

* Add a **JSON Schema** for the response, in the OpenAPI *path operation*.
    * This will be used by the **automatic docs**.

#### Generate Client Code

To generate the client code you can use the command line application `openapi-ts` that would now be installed.

Because it is installed in the local project, you probably wouldn't be able to call that command directly, but you would put it on your `package.json` file.

It could look like this:

```JSON  hl_lines="7"
{
  "name": "frontend-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",

```Python hl_lines="8-13"
{!../../../docs_src/sql_databases/sql_app/tests/test_sql_app.py!}
```

!!! tip
    You could reduce duplication in that code by putting it in a function and using it from both `database.py` and `tests/test_sql_app.py`.

    For simplicity and to focus on the specific testing code, we are just copying it.

## Create the database

# GraphQL

As **FastAPI** is based on the **ASGI** standard, it's very easy to integrate any **GraphQL** library also compatible with ASGI.

You can combine normal FastAPI *path operations* with GraphQL on the same application.

!!! tip
    **GraphQL** solves some very specific use cases.

    It has **advantages** and **disadvantages** when compared to common **web APIs**.