Does FastAPI Work With GitHub Actions?

Fully CompatibleLast verified: 2026-02-20

FastAPI and GitHub Actions integrate seamlessly for building, testing, and deploying Python APIs with automated CI/CD pipelines.

Quick Facts

Compatibility

full

Setup Difficulty

Easy

Official Integration

No — community maintained

Confidence

high

Minimum Versions

FastAPI: 0.68.0

How FastAPI Works With GitHub Actions

FastAPI works exceptionally well with GitHub Actions because both are modern, Python-native tools designed for developer velocity. GitHub Actions can run on every push or pull request to lint your code with Ruff, run pytest against your FastAPI endpoints, and generate coverage reports. The workflow runs in an isolated Ubuntu/macOS/Windows container where you install FastAPI via pip, spin up a test server, and make HTTP requests against it—all without leaving GitHub. For deployment, Actions can build Docker images of your FastAPI app, push them to registries like Docker Hub or GitHub Container Registry, and deploy to services like AWS ECS, Railway, or Render. The developer experience is excellent: write a `.github/workflows/test.yml` file, commit it, and every PR automatically validates your code. FastAPI's automatic OpenAPI documentation generation means you can even run schema validation tests in your CI pipeline. The only architectural consideration is managing secrets securely (database URLs, API keys) through GitHub's encrypted secrets rather than committing them.

Best Use Cases

→Automated testing: Run pytest against FastAPI endpoints on every PR to catch regressions before merging

→Docker build and push: Automatically containerize your FastAPI app and push to Docker Hub or GHCR on tag releases

→Database migrations: Run Alembic migrations in CI before deploying FastAPI instances to ensure schema compatibility

→API documentation validation: Generate and validate OpenAPI schemas to ensure your FastAPI docs stay in sync with actual endpoints

Basic FastAPI Test & Deploy Workflow

bash

N/A - this is a workflow file, place in .github/workflows/test.yml

bash

name: FastAPI CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v4
        with:
          python-version: '3.11'
          cache: 'pip'
      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt pytest httpx
      - run: pytest tests/ --cov=app
      - name: Run FastAPI server health check
        run: |
          python -m pytest tests/test_api.py::test_health_endpoint

  deploy:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Build and push Docker image
        run: |
          docker build -t myapp:${{ github.sha }} .
          docker push myapp:${{ github.sha }}

Known Issues & Gotchas

critical

Async tests fail or hang in CI if pytest-asyncio isn't configured correctly

Fix: Add `pytest.ini` with `asyncio_mode = auto` and ensure you're using `pytest-asyncio` package in your test environment

warning

Dependencies cached between runs can cause version conflicts or outdated packages in CI

Fix: Use `actions/setup-python@v4` with explicit `cache: 'pip'` and clear cache if you update requirements.txt

info

GitHub Actions runners have limited free minutes (2000/month on public repos), and heavy workloads or matrix builds can exhaust quota

Fix: Use workflow concurrency, matrix strategies wisely, and consider GitHub-hosted runners only for critical checks; cache dependencies aggressively

warning

Environment variable secrets aren't available during workflow file parsing, leading to hardcoded values or missing config in logs

Fix: Use GitHub Secrets (Settings > Secrets) and reference them with `${{ secrets.NAME }}` in your workflow YAML

Alternatives

•GitLab CI + FastAPI: Native YAML pipelines with similar capabilities, better for on-premise GitLab instances
•Jenkins + FastAPI: More control and flexibility for complex workflows, heavier setup and maintenance overhead
•CircleCI + FastAPI: Generous free tier, excellent caching, better parallelization than GitHub Actions basic tier

Resources

docsFastAPI Official Docs docsGitHub Actions Documentation docsFastAPI Testing Guide docsGitHub Actions Workflow Syntax githubDeploy FastAPI with GitHub Actions

Related Compatibility Guides

FastAPI + DigitalOcean FastAPI + Cloudflare Pages FastAPI + Fly.io FastAPI + Render FastAPI + Railway FastAPI + Auth0

Explore more compatibility guides

All FastAPI combos All GitHub Actions combos