fastapi-foundry

fastapi-foundry is a command-line tool that scaffolds new FastAPI projects in seconds.

One command gives you a ready-to-run FastAPI application with a clean src/ layout, a modern uv-compatible pyproject.toml, environment-based configuration and a sensible .gitignore, so you can skip the boilerplate and start building your API.

uvx fastapi-foundry init myproject

Features

• One-command setup: fastapi-foundry init <name> creates a complete project.
• Runs immediately: the generated app starts with uv sync and uvicorn, no edits needed.
• Modern packaging: src/ layout, pyproject.toml and the uv_build backend.
• Safe by default: never overwrites an existing directory and rejects unsafe project names.
• Friendly names: my-api becomes the my-api/ folder with an importable my_api package.
• Minimal dependencies: generated projects depend only on FastAPI and Uvicorn.

Requirements

• Python 3.12 or newer
• uv (recommended) or pip

Install uv if you don't have it yet:

# macOS and Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Installation

Option 1: Run without installing (recommended)

uvx downloads and runs the latest version in a temporary environment:

uvx fastapi-foundry init myproject

Option 2: Install as a global command

uv tool install fastapi-foundry

Then use it from any directory:

fastapi-foundry init myproject

Upgrade later with:

uv tool upgrade fastapi-foundry

Option 3: Install with pip

pip install fastapi-foundry

Quick start

1. Create a project

uvx fastapi-foundry init myproject

Created FastAPI project: myproject

Next steps:
  cd myproject
  uv sync
  uv run uvicorn myproject.main:app --reload

2. Install dependencies

cd myproject
uv sync

3. Run the application

uv run uvicorn myproject.main:app --reload

4. Open it in your browser

Generated project structure

myproject/
├── pyproject.toml        # Project metadata and dependencies (FastAPI, Uvicorn)
├── .env                  # Environment variables
├── .gitignore            # Python, uv and tooling ignores
├── README.md             # How to install and run the project
└── src/
    └── myproject/
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── main.py       # FastAPI application
        ├── config.py     # Settings read from environment variables
        └── database/
            ├── __init__.py
            └── connection.py

The generated main.py:

from fastapi import FastAPI

from . import config

app = FastAPI(title=config.APP_NAME, debug=config.DEBUG)


@app.get("/")
def root() -> dict[str, str]:
    return {"message": "Hello from FastAPI"}

Configuration

Generated projects read their settings from environment variables in config.py:

To load the values from the generated .env file, start the server with --env-file:

uv run uvicorn myproject.main:app --reload --env-file .env

Project names

The project name is used for both the folder and the Python package, so it must:

• start with a letter
• contain only letters, digits, hyphens (-) and underscores (_)
• not be a Python keyword or clash with a standard library or FastAPI module (for example json or fastapi)

Hyphens are converted for the package name:

uvx fastapi-foundry init my-fastapi-app

This creates the my-fastapi-app/ folder containing the my_fastapi_app package, which you run with:

uv run uvicorn my_fastapi_app.main:app --reload

If the target folder already exists, fastapi-foundry stops with an error instead of overwriting your files.

Command reference

fastapi-foundry --help          # Show available commands
fastapi-foundry init --help     # Show help for the init command
fastapi-foundry init <name>     # Create a new project in the current directory

Roadmap

fastapi-foundry is in early development. Planned features include:

• Database setup with SQLAlchemy and Alembic migrations
• Settings management with Pydantic Settings
• Generators for models and routes
• Authentication scaffolding
• Docker support

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

To set up a development environment:

git clone https://github.com/udarakalpana/fastapi-foundry.git
cd fastapi-foundry
uv sync
uv run pytest

Run the CLI from your local checkout:

uv run fastapi-foundry init myproject

Tip: create test projects outside the repository folder so they don't get mixed into its Git history.

License

fastapi-foundry is released under the MIT License.