I Built 4 FastAPI Projects in 2 Weeks — Here's What I Wish I Knew Before Starting

I just spent two weeks building 4 FastAPI backends back to back. REST API, web scraper + dashboard, React admin panel, AI workbench with CrewAI. 134 Python files. 38 tests. And 15 CI failures before a single green run.

Here's the messy part nobody talks about.

Docker Compose is a time sink

Every project. Same 5 containers. api, postgres, redis, celery, nginx. By project #3 I was copy-pasting docker-compose.yml and changing 3 variables. That's not engineering — that's clerical work.

I now keep a _templates/ folder. Copy the Docker skeleton, rename the project name, done in 30 seconds. If you're starting a new FastAPI project right now and don't have this, you're burning 3 hours on boilerplate.