Development of Social Media API with FastAPI

Problem: Modern social platforms need secure, scalable backends that can handle authentication, user content (posts), and engagement (likes/votes). Many off-the-shelf solutions are either bloated or insecure, making it difficult for startups to quickly launch a reliable MVP.

Solution: I designed and implemented a production-ready Social Media API using FastAPI and PostgreSQL. Key features:

JWT Authentication with signup/login, token refresh, password hashing, and protected routes.

User & Profile Management with unique emails, timestamps, and ownership relationships.

Posts API supporting create/read/update/delete with strict ownership checks.

Likes & Votes with idempotent like/unlike logic and DB constraints to prevent duplicates.

Pagination & Filtering for large feeds.

Database Layer using PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, and Alembic migrations (foreign keys, cascades).

Clean Architecture with routers, schemas, services, and type-safe Pydantic models.

Security & Observability with structured logs, error handling, CORS, and principle of least privilege.

Deployment Ready with Docker images for dev & prod environments.

⚡ Performance: Optimized async endpoints for fast response times.

Reliability: DB constraints + JWT guardrails prevented duplicate likes and unauthorized actions.

Scalability: Modular design makes it easy to extend with new features (comments, follows, media uploads, notifications).

Deliverables: Complete repo with README, Alembic migrations, .env template, Postman collection/OpenAPI docs, runbook, and optional CI setup.

POST /auth/signup / POST /auth/login → secure user authentication

GET /posts?limit=20&skip=0 → paginated feed

POST /posts/{id}/like → idempotent like/unlike

PUT /posts/{id} / DELETE /posts/{id} → owner-only actions