The way to describe this in OpenAPI, is to mark that field as **required**, because it will always be there.

Because of that, the JSON Schema for a model can be different depending on if it's used for **input or output**:

* for **input** the `description` will **not be required**
* for **output** it will be **required** (and possibly `None`, or in JSON terms, `null`)

oauth2_scheme = OAuth2PasswordBearer(
    tokenUrl="/token",
    description="OAuth2PasswordBearer security scheme",
    auto_error=False,
)


@app.get("/items/")
async def read_items(token: str | None = Security(oauth2_scheme)):
    if token is None:
        return {"msg": "Create an account first"}
    return {"token": token}


client = TestClient(app)


def test_no_token():
    response = client.get("/items")

And you can also declare body parameters as optional, by setting the default to `None`:

{* ../../docs_src/body_multiple_params/tutorial001_an_py310.py hl[18:20] *}

/// 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 { #multiple-body-parameters }

from fastapi import Depends, FastAPI

app = FastAPI()


fake_items_db = [{"item_name": "Foo"}, {"item_name": "Bar"}, {"item_name": "Baz"}]


class CommonQueryParams:
    def __init__(self, q: str | None = None, skip: int = 0, limit: int = 100):
        self.q = q
        self.skip = skip
        self.limit = limit


@app.get("/items/")
async def read_items(commons: Annotated[Any, Depends(CommonQueryParams)]):

    responses={
        200: {
            "content": {"image/png": {}},
            "description": "Return the JSON item or an image.",
        }
    },
)
async def read_item(item_id: str, img: bool | None = None):
    if img:
        return FileResponse("image.png", media_type="image/png")
    else:

app = FastAPI()


def write_log(message: str):
    with open("log.txt", mode="a") as log:
        log.write(message)


def get_query(background_tasks: BackgroundTasks, q: str | None = None):
    if q:
        message = f"found query: {q}\n"
        background_tasks.add_task(write_log, message)
    return q


@app.post("/send-notification/{email}")
async def send_notification(

/// note

FastAPI will know that the value of `q` is not required because of the default value `= None`.

The `str | None` is not used by FastAPI to determine that the value is not required, it will know it's not required because it has a default value of `= None`.

But adding the type annotations will allow your editor to give you better support and detect errors.

///

     * @return RDMA provider instance, or null if none available
     */
    public static RdmaProvider getProvider(Configuration config) {
        String preference = config.getRdmaProvider();
        return createProvider(preference != null ? preference : "auto");
    }

    /**
     * Select the best available RDMA provider
     *
     * @return best RDMA provider, or null if none available
     */

async def read_items(
    item_id: UUID,
    start_datetime: Annotated[datetime, Body()],
    end_datetime: Annotated[datetime, Body()],
    process_after: Annotated[timedelta, Body()],
    repeat_at: Annotated[time | None, Body()] = None,
):
    start_process = start_datetime + process_after
    duration = end_datetime - start_process
    return {
        "item_id": item_id,
        "start_datetime": start_datetime,

from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
from inline_snapshot import snapshot
from pydantic import BaseModel, HttpUrl

app = FastAPI()


class Invoice(BaseModel):
    id: str
    title: str | None = None
    customer: str
    total: float


class InvoiceEvent(BaseModel):
    description: str
    paid: bool


class InvoiceEventReceived(BaseModel):
    ok: bool