FastAPI Customer Support Tech Enablement

What this skill does

# FastAPI Customer Support Tech Enablement Skill

## Overview

This skill provides comprehensive guidance for building production-ready customer support APIs using FastAPI, the modern, fast (high-performance) web framework for building APIs with Python 3.8+ based on standard Python type hints.

FastAPI is ideal for customer support systems due to its:
- **Async capabilities** for handling concurrent requests (multiple support agents, real-time updates)
- **Automatic data validation** with Pydantic (ensuring data integrity for tickets, users, responses)
- **Built-in API documentation** (OpenAPI/Swagger for support team training)
- **WebSocket support** for real-time chat and notifications
- **Easy database integration** with SQLAlchemy for PostgreSQL operations
- **Type safety** reducing bugs in critical support workflows

## Core Competencies

### 1. Async API Development

FastAPI is built on top of Starlette for web routing and Pydantic for data validation, providing excellent async support for I/O-bound operations common in customer support systems.

**Key Concepts:**
- Use `async def` for path operations when making database queries, external API calls, or file operations
- Use regular `def` for CPU-bound operations or when using synchronous libraries
- FastAPI automatically handles the async/await pattern under the hood
- Background tasks for non-blocking operations (email notifications, log processing)

**Best Practices for Support APIs:**
```python
# Async for database operations (most support APIs)
@app.get("/tickets/{ticket_id}")
async def get_ticket(ticket_id: int, db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db)):
    result = await db.execute(select(Ticket).where(Ticket.id == ticket_id))
    ticket = result.scalar_one_or_none()
    if not ticket:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=404, detail="Ticket not found")
    return ticket

# Sync for simple operations without I/O
@app.get("/health")
def health_check():
    return {"status": "healthy"}
```

### 2. Dependency Injection System

FastAPI's dependency injection is powerful for managing shared resources like database sessions, authentication, and configuration.

**Database Session Management:**
```python
from typing import AsyncGenerator
from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import AsyncSession, create_async_engine, async_sessionmaker

DATABASE_URL = "postgresql+asyncpg://user:password@localhost/support_db"

engine = create_async_engine(DATABASE_URL, echo=True)
AsyncSessionLocal = async_sessionmaker(engine, class_=AsyncSession, expire_on_commit=False)

async def get_db() -> AsyncGenerator[AsyncSession, None]:
    async with AsyncSessionLocal() as session:
        try:
            yield session
            await session.commit()
        except Exception:
            await session.rollback()
            raise
        finally:
            await session.close()

# Use in endpoints
@app.post("/tickets/")
async def create_ticket(
    ticket: TicketCreate,
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db)
):
    db_ticket = Ticket(**ticket.dict())
    db.add(db_ticket)
    await db.commit()
    await db.refresh(db_ticket)
    return db_ticket
```

**Authentication Dependencies:**
```python
from fastapi.security import OAuth2PasswordBearer
from jose import jwt, JWTError

oauth2_scheme = OAuth2PasswordBearer(tokenUrl="token")

async def get_current_user(
    token: str = Depends(oauth2_scheme),
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db)
) -> User:
    credentials_exception = HTTPException(
        status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
        detail="Could not validate credentials",
        headers={"WWW-Authenticate": "Bearer"},
    )
    try:
        payload = jwt.decode(token, SECRET_KEY, algorithms=[ALGORITHM])
        username: str = payload.get("sub")
        if username is None:
            raise credentials_exception
    except JWTError:
        raise credentials_exception

    result = await db.execute(select(User).where(User.username == username))
    user = result.scalar_one_or_none()
    if user is None:
        raise credentials_exception
    return user

async def get_current_active_agent(
    current_user: User = Depends(get_current_user)
) -> User:
    if not current_user.is_active or current_user.role != "agent":
        raise HTTPException(status_code=403, detail="Not authorized as support agent")
    return current_user
```

### 3. Request Validation with Pydantic

Pydantic models ensure data integrity throughout your support system.

**Base Models for Customer Support:**
```python
from pydantic import BaseModel, EmailStr, Field, validator
from datetime import datetime
from typing import Optional, List
from enum import Enum

class TicketPriority(str, Enum):
    LOW = "low"
    MEDIUM = "medium"
    HIGH = "high"
    URGENT = "urgent"

class TicketStatus(str, Enum):
    OPEN = "open"
    IN_PROGRESS = "in_progress"
    WAITING_CUSTOMER = "waiting_customer"
    RESOLVED = "resolved"
    CLOSED = "closed"

class TicketBase(BaseModel):
    title: str = Field(..., min_length=3, max_length=200)
    description: str = Field(..., min_length=10)
    priority: TicketPriority = TicketPriority.MEDIUM
    category: str = Field(..., max_length=50)

    @validator('title')
    def title_must_not_be_empty(cls, v):
        if not v.strip():
            raise ValueError('Title cannot be empty or whitespace')
        return v.strip()

class TicketCreate(TicketBase):
    customer_email: EmailStr
    attachments: Optional[List[str]] = []

class TicketUpdate(BaseModel):
    title: Optional[str] = Field(None, min_length=3, max_length=200)
    description: Optional[str] = None
    status: Optional[TicketStatus] = None
    priority: Optional[TicketPriority] = None
    assigned_to: Optional[int] = None

class TicketResponse(TicketBase):
    id: int
    status: TicketStatus
    customer_email: str
    assigned_to: Optional[int]
    created_at: datetime
    updated_at: datetime

    class Config:
        from_attributes = True  # For SQLAlchemy models
```

### 4. Database Integration with SQLAlchemy

Modern async SQLAlchemy integration for PostgreSQL operations.

**Model Definitions:**
```python
from sqlalchemy import Column, Integer, String, DateTime, ForeignKey, Enum, Text
from sqlalchemy.orm import declarative_base, relationship
from sqlalchemy.sql import func
import enum

Base = declarative_base()

class TicketStatusEnum(enum.Enum):
    OPEN = "open"
    IN_PROGRESS = "in_progress"
    WAITING_CUSTOMER = "waiting_customer"
    RESOLVED = "resolved"
    CLOSED = "closed"

class TicketPriorityEnum(enum.Enum):
    LOW = "low"
    MEDIUM = "medium"
    HIGH = "high"
    URGENT = "urgent"

class User(Base):
    __tablename__ = "users"

    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True, index=True)
    username = Column(String(50), unique=True, index=True, nullable=False)
    email = Column(String(100), unique=True, index=True, nullable=False)
    hashed_password = Column(String(255), nullable=False)
    full_name = Column(String(100))
    role = Column(String(20), default="customer")  # customer, agent, admin
    is_active = Column(Boolean, default=True)
    created_at = Column(DateTime(timezone=True), server_default=func.now())

    assigned_tickets = relationship("Ticket", back_populates="assigned_agent")
    comments = relationship("Comment", back_populates="author")

class Ticket(Base):
    __tablename__ = "tickets"

    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True, index=True)
    title = Column(String(200), nullable=False)
    description = Column(Text, nullable=False)
    status = Column(Enum(TicketStatusEnum), default=TicketStatusEnum.OPEN, index=True)
    priority = Column(Enum(TicketPriorityEnum), default=TicketPriorityEnum.MEDIUM, index=True)
    category = Column(String(50), index=True)
    customer_email = Column(String(100), index=True, nullable=False)
    assigned_to = Column(Integer, ForeignKey("users.id"), nullable=True)
    created_at = Column(DateTime(timezone=True), server_default=func.now())
    updated_at = Column(DateTime(tim