My goal was to create a simple mock API for testing purposes and deploy it with Render.com. To achieve this, I created a database file containing the API data as well as a small backend for deployment. Additionally, I implemented API key authentication to test this functionality in other projects.
The Python module http.server, which was previously used in this project for server functionality, is not recommended for production due to its limitations and lack of security features. It only implements basic security checks. Therefore, I transitioned to using the Flask framework for the final version of my mock API.
I took the time to learn how Python decorators work and how to use them to better understand the construction of a Flask server.
I deployed this project with Render.com. Here you can access the mock data using the following API endpoint and API key:
https://mock-api-books-1dn8.onrender.com/?api_key=my_supersecret_api_key
If you use the URL without adding the (correct) API-key, you will receive an error message with the content "error": "Invalid API key,". This indicates that the API authentication works correctly. You can test the response without providing any API key here: