practice-api

For creating custom APIs

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+ on macOS (python3 --version)

Quickstart

cd practice-api
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn app.main:app --reload

Try it

• Open your browser to http://127.0.0.1:8000 for the welcome message
• Health check: http://127.0.0.1:8000/health
• Interactive docs: http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs

Example request:

curl -X POST "http://127.0.0.1:8000/echo" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "hello"}'

Project structure

practice-api/
  app/
    __init__.py
    main.py
  requirements.txt
  README.md

Next steps

• Add new endpoints in app/main.py
• Split routes into modules (e.g., app/routers/) as the API grows
• Add tests with pytest

Dropbox endpoint

Set DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN in your environment (User or App token with files.content.read scope).

Run locally:

export DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN=YOUR_TOKEN
uvicorn app.main:app --reload

Request:

curl -X POST "http://127.0.0.1:8000/dropbox/pdfs" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"folder_path": "/path/in/dropbox"}'

Response:

{ "files": ["a.pdf", "nested/b.pdf"], "count": 2 }

On Render, add an Environment Variable DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN in the service settings.

Deploy to Render

1. Push this repo to GitHub.
2. Sign in to Render and create a new Web Service from your repo.
   • Environment: Python
   • Build Command: pip install -r requirements.txt
   • Start Command: uvicorn app.main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port $PORT
   • Health Check Path: /health
3. After deploy, your base URL will be something like https://practice-api.onrender.com.

Test from n8n (HTTP Request node)

• Method: GET
• URL: https://practice-api.onrender.com/health
• Expect: {"status":"ok"} and HTTP 200

For POST /echo in n8n:

• Method: POST
• URL: https://practice-api.onrender.com/echo
• Send: JSON body {"message":"hello"}
• Headers: Content-Type: application/json