Async Task Processor

An asynchronous task processing microservice built with FastAPI.
This project demonstrates how to accept incoming work, dispatch it to background tasks, and expose simple HTTP endpoints for checking task status.

It is intentionally small and easy to read so it can be used as a teaching / portfolio project for backend + async patterns in Python.

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✨ Features

• /tasks endpoint to enqueue work using FastAPI BackgroundTasks
• In-memory task store for demo purposes (no external queue required)
• /tasks/{task_id} endpoint to check the task status
• /health endpoint for simple health checking
• Clean separation between request models, task processor, and status store

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🧱 Project Structure

async-task-processor/
├─ app/
│  └─ main.py        # FastAPI app + background task processing
├─ requirements.txt  # Python dependencies
└─ README.md         # Project documentation

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▶️ Run Locally

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/async-task-processor.git
cd async-task-processor

# 2. Create a virtual environment (optional, but recommended)
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
# On Windows:
# venv\Scripts\activate

# 3. Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# 4. Start the FastAPI server
uvicorn app.main:app --reload

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🔌 API Endpoints

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1. POST /tasks – Enqueue a task

Request

{
  "task_type": "send_email",
  "payload": {
    "to": "[email protected]",
    "subject": "Welcome",
    "body": "Thanks for signing up!"
  }
}

Example Response

{
  "task_id": "task_1",
  "status": "queued"
}

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**2. GET /tasks/{task_id} – Check status

Example

GET /tasks/task_1

Example Response

{
  "task_id": "task_1",
  "status": "processing"
}

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**3. GET /health – Health check

{ "status": "ok" }

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🧩 Extending With a Real Queue

To make it production-ready you could integrate:

• Redis + RQ / Celery workers
• A message broker like RabbitMQ or Kafka
• A database table to persist task status

The API contract can stay the same while the internal implementation improves underneath.

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Python 3.10+
• FastAPI
• Pydantic
• Uvicorn(ASGI server)