Inside Books Project Backend

This repository contains the FastAPI backend that powers the Inside Books Project database interface. Inside Books Project is a volunteer-run organization based in Austin that sends free books and educational materials to incarcerated people throughout Texas. Volunteers correspond with individuals in prisons, locate requested books, and ship packages every week.

The backend server makes it easier for volunteers to manage these logistics. It provides REST API endpoints for looking up Texas Department of Criminal Justice inmate data, tracking book requests, storing comments, and managing the list of prison units. The data served here is used by the web interface volunteers rely on when preparing outgoing shipments.

Installation

Use uv to create and synchronize a virtual environment:

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate
uv sync

Running the server

During development you can launch the application with FastAPI's development server which enables live reloads:

uv run fastapi dev ibp

For a production build use the regular run command:

uv run fastapi run

Both commands start the application on localhost:8000 by default. Configuration such as database location and logging options can be adjusted in conf/server.conf.