Day 19 — Deploying FastAPI to Production

Day 19 of #60DaysOfPython — Took the Day 18 FastAPI + pytest project and deployed it live: swapped SQLite for a managed Postgres database, picked a hosting platform, and got every endpoint working against a real production database.

Live API: day19-deployment-production.up.railway.app

What Changed from Day 18

• Swapped local SQLite for a managed Supabase Postgres database
• Updated database.py to read the connection string from an environment variable (DATABASE_URL) instead of hardcoding SQLite
• Removed all secrets from source control — SECRET_KEY and DATABASE_URL now live only in the hosting platform's environment variables
• Fixed the Uvicorn start command to bind to 0.0.0.0 and read the platform's dynamic $PORT, instead of the local-dev default

Deployment Journey

Started with Render as the first choice (generous permanent free tier, no time limit). Hit a wall trying to provision a database — Render requires card verification (a refundable $1 authorization) before creating any database, even on the free tier. Decided not to add a card for a learning project at this stage.

Pivoted to a two-platform setup instead:

• Database → Supabase — free managed Postgres, no card required, generated in the Southeast Asia (Singapore) region for low latency
• App hosting → Railway — connected the GitHub repo, deployed straight from main

This split (one platform for the app, another for the database) ended up being a useful pattern in itself: it decouples hosting decisions from data persistence decisions.

Verifying the Deploy

Tested the full request lifecycle against the live database, not just that the server started:

• /docs loads the Swagger UI with all endpoints listed
• /register creates a user — confirmed the row appears in Supabase's Table Editor
• /login returns a valid JWT
• Protected routes (/me, /dashboard) correctly accept the token and enforce role checks

Tech Stack

• FastAPI — API framework
• Supabase (Postgres) — managed production database
• SQLAlchemy — ORM, now pointed at Postgres instead of SQLite
• Pydantic v2 — request/response validation
• python-jose — JWT generation and verification
• passlib + bcrypt — password hashing
• Railway — application hosting / deployment
• pytest + httpx — test runner and HTTP client (carried over from Day 18)

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
DATABASE_URL	Supabase Postgres connection string (pooler)
SECRET_KEY	JWT signing secret

Set these in Railway's Variables tab — never committed to the repo.

Setup & Run Locally

pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn main:app --reload

Run Tests

pytest -v

Lessons Learned

• A "free tier" can still gate specific features (like databases) behind card verification — worth checking before committing to a platform
• Splitting app hosting and database hosting across two free-tier-friendly platforms is a practical workaround for early-stage projects
• Connection pooling matters: Supabase's pooler connection (port 6543) is the safer choice for apps on PaaS platforms versus the direct connection (port 5432)

Part of

#60DaysOfPython — rebuilding to professional software development, one project a day.