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Created byMark Winterbottom, Brooke Rutherford

Last updated 4/2025

English

What you'll learn

Setting up a local development server with Docker
Writing a Python project using Test Driven Development
Building a REST API with advanced features such as uploading and viewing images
Creating a backend that can be used a base for your future projects or MVP
Hands on experience applying best practice principles such as PEP-8 and unit tests
Configure Travis-CI to automate code checks

Course content

20 sections • 156 lectures • 14h 46m total length

Technical requirements1:08
What you will need in order to take this course.
API details & Upgrades1:55
Introduction to the course which explains everything you need to know before getting started.
Course structure1:53
Overview of the course structure
Getting help5:16
How to get help if you get stuck when following the steps in this course.

New project overview6:26
Explains how we will structure the project.
Create GitHub project [Follow Along]5:27
Create a new project on GitHub.
Docker and Django4:25
Explains how we will use Docker to run our Django project.
Define Python requirements [Follow Along]3:46
Define the Python requirements we will need for our project.
Create project Dockerfile [Follow Along]17:46
Create a new Dockerfile for our project.
Create Docker Compose configuration [Follow Along]4:03
Create a new Docker Compose configuration.
Linting and Tests3:04
Explains how the linting and tests will work with our project.
Configure flake8 [Follow Along]10:04
Configure flake8 to do our linting.
Create Django project [Follow Along]2:39
Create a new Django project through Docker Compose.
Run project with Docker Compose [Follow Along]1:58
Run our project using Docker Compose.
Project setup overview1:03
Overview of what we did in this section.
Quiz: Docker and Docker Compose

What is GitHub Actions2:30
Explains what GitHub Actions is and how we will use it for our project.
Configuring GitHub Actions4:09
Explains how GitHub Actions configuration works.
Create GitHub Actions config [Follow Along]11:15
Configure GitHub Actions for our project.
UPDATE: Docker Compose and Ubuntu Runner0:40
Test GitHub Actions [Follow Along]6:49
Test GitHub actions by deliberately breaking and then fixing our code.
Quiz: GitHub Actions configuration

Database architecture overview4:51
How we will configure our database architecture for development.
Add database service [Follow Along]6:47
Add a database service to our Docker Compose configuration file.
Database configuration with Django8:13
Learn how database configuration works with Django
Install PostgreSQL database adaptor [Follow Along]5:29
Install the PostgreSQL adaptor.
Configure database in Django [Follow Along]2:53
Configure our Django project to use database service.
Fixing database race condition4:46
Explains the database race condition issue.
Create core app [Follow Along]2:05
Create a "core" app for containing our shared app code.
Write tests for wait_for_db command [Follow Along]19:45
Write unit tests for our wait_for_db spec.
Add wait_for_db command [Follow Along]9:15
Implement wait_for_db command.
Database migrations7:54
Learn how to handle database migrations with Django and Docker.
Update Docker Compose and CI/CD [Follow Along]4:21
Modify project configuration to use our new wait_for_db command.
Summary0:57
Summarise what we did in the database configuration section.

The Django user model5:16
How we will integrate our Django user model.
Design custom user model2:08
Design overview for the custom user model we will be building.
Add user model tests [Follow Along]7:01
Create a test for our user model.
Implement user model [Follow Along]17:27
Implement our user model to make tests pass.
Normalize email addresses [Follow Along]6:10
Normalise email addresses to avoid issues with capitalisation.
Require email input [Follow Along]2:50
Require that an email address is provided to the function.
Add superuser support [Follow Along]4:29
Add support for creating superusers through the CLI.
Test user model [Follow Along]2:40
Test the new user model in the CLI
Summary of Create User Model0:24
Summarise what we did in the Create User Model section.

Django admin overview4:00
Explains what the Django admin is and how we will use it.
Write tests for listing users [Follow Along]7:58
Write tests for listing users in the Django admin.
Make Django admin list users [Follow Along]5:16
Update the Django admin to list users.
Support modifying users [Follow Along]8:19
Update Django admin to support modifying users.
Support creating users [Follow Along]5:15
Add support for creating users through the Django admin.

Requirements

Basic knowledge of programming and building simple applications
Familiar with Django
Comfortable using command line tools (Terminal/Command Prompt)
macOS, Linux or Windows machine capable of running Docker (This excludes Windows 10 Home)
Positive attitude and willingness to learn!

Description

**NOTE: This course requires you to download Docker Desktop from Docker's website. If you are a Udemy Business user, please check with your employer before downloading software.**

Welcome to the advanced course on how to Build a Backend REST API using Python, Django (3.2), Django REST Framework (3.12), Docker, GitHub Actions, Postgres and Test Driven Development!

Whether you’re a freelance programmer, tech entrepreneur, or just starting out building backends - this course will help lay the foundation of your knowledge base and give you the tools to advance your skills with some of the most in-demand programming languages today.

APIs are the unsung heroes behind the technologies that we all love and use religiously.

One of the most critical components for any tech-based business is an API. So knowing how to create an API from start to finish is a vital skill to have as a developer. You cannot build a successful app without a backend REST API!

In this course I’ll show you how to build an advanced API that handles creating and updating user profiles, changing passwords, creating objects, uploading images, filtering and searching objects, and more.

The best way to learn anything is to do it. So the practical application of the course -- the project that you’ll build along side me -- is an API. A recipe API, to be specific.

You will learn how to build an advanced recipe API that allows you to upload and store some of your favourite recipes from photos and the web.

You’ll learn how to create objects i.e. recipes with titles, price points, cooking times, ingredients and tags like “comfort food”, “vegan” or “dessert”. Think of it as a virtual recipe box.

By the end of this course you will have built a fully functioning REST API that can handle:

User authentication
Creating objects
Filtering and sorting objects
Uploading and viewing images

You’ll also learn, in detail how to:

Setup a project with Docker and Docker-Compose
Configure GitHub Actions to automatically run linting and unit tests
Write unit tests using the Django Test Framework
Apply best practice principles including Test Driven Development
Handle uploading media files with Django
Customize the Django admin
Configure a Postgres database

This course has one singular focus: To teach you how to create an advanced API from start to finish using best practice principles and Test Driven Development.

This course is NOT FOR YOU:

If you’re looking for a course to build an API, a front end, and deployment
If you’re looking to build 10 different apps in one course
If you want to learn lots of different technologies and approaches to app development in general

This is a hands-on course, with a bit of theory and lots of opportunities to test your knowledge.

The content is challenging but rewarding. Ready for it? Let’s dive in!

**PLEASE NOTE: You cannot run Docker on Windows 10 Home edition. This is because Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise is required in order to use Hyper-V which Docker uses for virtualization. To take this course you have two options. These are covered in Lecture 6, which is free to preview before purchasing the course.

Who this course is for:

Intermediate programmers who already have some understanding of Python and want to skill up
Developers proficient in other languages but looking to add Python to their toolkit

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction4 lectures • 10min

App Design3 lectures • 8min

Test Driven Development1 lecture • 3min

System Setup2 lectures • 2min

Project Setup11 lectures • 1hr 1min

Configure GitHub Actions5 lectures • 25min

Test Driven Development with Django6 lectures • 28min

Configure Database12 lectures • 1hr 17min

Create User Model9 lectures • 48min

Setup Django Admin5 lectures • 31min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: