**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.

    {!> ../../../docs_src/response_model/tutorial001_01.py!}
    ```

FastAPI will use this return type to:

* **Validate** the returned data.
    * If the data is invalid (e.g. you are missing a field), it means that *your* app code is broken, not returning what it should, and it will return a server error instead of returning incorrect data. This way you and your clients can be certain that they will receive the data and the data shape expected.

And whenever you update the backend code, and **regenerate** the frontend, it would have any new *path operations* available as methods, the old ones removed, and any other change would be reflected on the generated code. 🤓

This also means that if something changed it will be **reflected** on the client code automatically. And if you **build** the client it will error out if you have any **mismatch** in the data used.

The `root_path` is used to handle these specific cases.

And it's also used internally when mounting sub-applications.

## Proxy with a stripped path prefix

Having a proxy with a stripped path prefix, in this case, means that you could declare a path at `/app` in your code, but then, you add a layer on top (the proxy) that would put your **FastAPI** application under a path like `/api/v1`.

In all the docs there are examples compatible with each version of Python (when there's a difference).

For example "**Python 3.6+**" means it's compatible with Python 3.6 or above (including 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, etc). And "**Python 3.9+**" means it's compatible with Python 3.9 or above (including 3.10, etc).

## Mounting a **FastAPI** application

"Mounting" means adding a completely "independent" application in a specific path, that then takes care of handling everything under that path, with the _path operations_ declared in that sub-application.

### Top-level application

This code is something you can actually use in your application, save the password hashes in your database, etc.

We are going to start from where we left in the previous chapter and increment it.

## About JWT

JWT means "JSON Web Tokens".

It's a standard to codify a JSON object in a long dense string without spaces. It looks like this:

```

Then the next concepts to consider are all about the program running your actual API (e.g. Uvicorn).

## Program and Process

We will talk a lot about the running "**process**", so it's useful to have clarity about what it means, and what's the difference with the word "**program**".

### What is a Program

The word **program** is commonly used to describe many things:

* The **code** that you write, the **Python files**.

### How the importing works

The section:

```Python
from .routers import items, users
```

means:

* Starting in the same package that this module (the file `app/main.py`) lives in (the directory `app/`)...
* look for the subpackage `routers` (the directory at `app/routers/`)...

### ❌ 📨 🆎 ✍

✋️ 🕐❔ 👆 📨 🎏 ❌ 🎚 👈 🚫 ☑ Pydantic 🆎 (✅ 💽 🎚) & 👆 ✍ ⚫️ 💖 👈 🔢, FastAPI 🔜 🔄 ✍ Pydantic 📨 🏷 ⚪️➡️ 👈 🆎 ✍, & 🔜 ❌.

🎏 🔜 🔨 🚥 👆 ✔️ 🕳 💖 <abbr title='A union between multiple types means "any of these types".'>🇪🇺</abbr> 🖖 🎏 🆎 🌐❔ 1️⃣ ⚖️ 🌅 👫 🚫 ☑ Pydantic 🆎, 🖼 👉 🔜 ❌ 👶:

=== "🐍 3️⃣.6️⃣ &amp; 🔛"

    ```Python hl_lines="10"
    {!> ../../../docs_src/response_model/tutorial003_04.py!}