Health check endpoints in FastAPI - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Health check endpoints

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple web service using FastAPI. To make sure your service is running well, you want to add health check endpoints. These endpoints will let other systems ask if your service is alive and ready to handle requests.

🎯 Goal: Create a FastAPI app with two health check endpoints: /health/alive and /health/ready. The /health/alive endpoint will confirm the app is running. The /health/ready endpoint will confirm the app is ready to serve requests.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a FastAPI app instance named app

Add a GET endpoint at /health/alive that returns JSON {"status": "alive"}

Add a GET endpoint at /health/ready that returns JSON {"status": "ready"}

Use proper FastAPI route decorators and response models

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Health check endpoints are used by monitoring tools and load balancers to verify if a web service is running and ready to accept traffic.

💼 Career

Knowing how to create health check endpoints is essential for backend developers and DevOps engineers to ensure reliable and maintainable web services.

1

Create FastAPI app instance

Import FastAPI from fastapi and create an app instance called app.

FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI

# Create FastAPI app instance called app
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use FastAPI() to create the app instance and assign it to app.

2

Add /health/alive endpoint

Add a GET endpoint at /health/alive using @app.get decorator. The endpoint function should be named health_alive and return {"status": "alive"}.

FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI

app = FastAPI()

# Add GET endpoint /health/alive
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use @app.get("/health/alive") to create the route and return the JSON dictionary.

3

Add /health/ready endpoint

Add a GET endpoint at /health/ready using @app.get decorator. The endpoint function should be named health_ready and return {"status": "ready"}.

FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI

app = FastAPI()

@app.get("/health/alive")
def health_alive():
    return {"status": "alive"}

# Add GET endpoint /health/ready
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use @app.get("/health/ready") and return the JSON dictionary with status ready.

4

Complete FastAPI app with both endpoints

Ensure the FastAPI app has both /health/alive and /health/ready GET endpoints defined with correct function names and return values.

FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI

app = FastAPI()

@app.get("/health/alive")
def health_alive():
    return {"status": "alive"}

@app.get("/health/ready")
def health_ready():
    return {"status": "ready"}

# Final check: app with both endpoints ready
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Review your code to confirm both endpoints are present and correct.