THE 404 AI - Backend

Description

This is the official backend service for THE 404 AI. It is a high-performance API built with Python and FastAPI that handles all server-side logic, including user authentication (registration and login), database interactions, and providing data to the frontend application.

Prerequisites

• Python (v3.10 or newer recommended)
• pip package manager
• virtualenv for creating isolated Python environments (highly recommended)

Local Development Setup

Follow these steps to get the backend server running on your local machine.

1. Clone the Repository

2. Create and Activate a Virtual Environment

This step creates an isolated environment for the project's dependencies.

Create the virtual environment python -m venv venv

Activate the environment (command differs by OS/shell) On Windows (PowerShell): .\venv\Scripts\activate

On Windows (Command Prompt): .\venv\Scripts\activate.bat

On macOS and Linux: source venv/bin/activate

3. Install Dependencies

First, ensure you have a requirements.txt file by running pip freeze > requirements.txt inside your activated virtual environment. Then, install all the required Python packages.

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Run the Development Server

Start the FastAPI server using uvicorn. The --reload flag enables hot-reloading, which automatically restarts the server when you make code changes.

By default, the API will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000.

Important Notes

• CORS Configuration: If you change the port or domain of your frontend application, remember to update the origins list in the CORSMiddleware configuration inside main.py.
• Database: This project uses a local 404_ai.db SQLite database file, which is automatically created when the server first runs. This file is excluded from Git via .gitignore.
• Password Hashing: Passwords are securely hashed using bcrypt. Due to a known limitation of the bcrypt algorithm, passwords are truncated to 72 bytes before hashing.