Extension Modules

In order to make the whole backend more consistent, it is divided into different modules. This is to ensure that these can be outsourced without major impacts and that other modules can be added as "plugins".

An extension has the following structure:

extension
├── __init__.py
├── crud.py
├── injectables.py
├── models.py
├── routes.py
└── ...

The different components are explained in the following section.

Extension Modules

__init__.py

Code to be called to initialize a module.

crud.py

All CRUD (Create, read, update and delete) related operations. They should be used to access the database. They should be used to access the database, in case there are no existing injectables.

There should not be much logic in the crud.py files (really just creating, reading, updating and deleting) models in the database.

injectables.py

In the injectables module, we define useful functions that allow to retrieve resources by simply defining the resource as parameter of the fastapi route and using the injectable function as dependency (i.e., resource: ResourceType = Depends(injectableFunction)). By using these injectables, we reduce the code duplication, since we include logic (such as checking whether a project exists) into the injectable function, and the readability of the code is increased.

models.py

In the models module, all pydantic and SQLAlchemy models should be defined. In general, we use the Database prefix for SQLAlchemy models, e.g., DatabaseProject.

routes.py

The routes module should include all fastAPI routes.

...

Other submodules can of course be created and are usually also useful if logic needs to be implemented.