## Previous Steps Before Starting

There are many cases where you want to perform some steps **before starting** your application.

For example, you might want to run **database migrations**.

But in most cases, you will want to perform these steps only **once**.

So, you will want to have a **single process** to perform those **previous steps**, before starting the application.

But at some point, there was no other option than creating something that provided all these features, taking the best ideas from previous tools, and combining them in the best way possible, using language features that weren't even available before (Python 3.6+ type hints).

## Previous tools

### <a href="https://www.djangoproject.com/" class="external-link" target="_blank">Django</a>

You could want to set up a different database for testing, rollback the data after the tests, pre-fill it with some testing data, etc.

The main idea is exactly the same you saw in that previous chapter.

## Add tests for the SQL app

Let's update the example from [SQL (Relational) Databases](../tutorial/sql-databases.md){.internal-link target=_blank} to use a testing database.

And also the docs about <a href="https://strawberry.rocks/docs/integrations/fastapi" class="external-link" target="_blank">Strawberry with FastAPI</a>.

## Older `GraphQLApp` from Starlette

Previous versions of Starlette included a `GraphQLApp` class to integrate with <a href="https://graphene-python.org/" class="external-link" target="_blank">Graphene</a>.

But at some point, there was no other option than creating something that provided all these features, taking the best ideas from previous tools, and combining them in the best way possible, using language features that weren't even available before (Python 3.6+ type hints).

</blockquote>

## Investigation

...but continue reading below to see how to overcome that.

## Return Type and Data Filtering

Let's continue from the previous example. We wanted to **annotate the function with one type** but return something that includes **more data**.

We want FastAPI to keep **filtering** the data using the response model.

    ```

!!! note
    Notice that, in this case, the `item` that would be taken from the body is optional. As it has a `None` default value.

## Multiple body parameters

In the previous example, the *path operations* would expect a JSON body with the attributes of an `Item`, like:

```JSON
{
    "name": "Foo",
    "description": "The pretender",
    "price": 42.0,
    "tax": 3.2
}
```

# Get Current User

In the previous chapter the security system (which is based on the dependency injection system) was giving the *path operation function* a `token` as a `str`:

=== "Python 3.9+"

    ```Python hl_lines="12"
    {!> ../../../docs_src/security/tutorial001_an_py39.py!}
    ```

=== "Python 3.8+"

    ```Python hl_lines="11"
    {!> ../../../docs_src/security/tutorial001_an.py!}
    ```

=== "Python 3.8+ non-Annotated"

This is the basic idea. But you will probably want to take care of some additional things, like:

* Security - HTTPS
* Running on startup
* Restarts
* Replication (the number of processes running)
* Memory
* Previous steps before starting

    You could also simply create that file with those contents manually.

That command also created a dummy file `docs/ht/index.md` for the main page, you can start by translating that one.

You can continue with the previous instructions for an "Existing Language" for that process.

You can make the first pull request with those two files, `docs/ht/mkdocs.yml` and `docs/ht/index.md`. 🎉

#### Preview the result