⚡ OverFast API

OverFast API provides comprehensive data on Overwatch 2 heroes, game modes, maps, and player statistics by scraping Blizzard pages. Developed with the efficiency of FastAPI and Selectolax, it leverages nginx as a reverse proxy and Redis for caching. Its tailored caching mechanism significantly reduces calls to Blizzard pages, ensuring swift and precise data delivery to users.

Table of contents

• ✨ Live instance
• 🐋 Run for production
• 💽 Run as developer
• 👨‍💻 Technical details
• 🐍 Architecture
• 🤝 Contributing
• 🚀 Community projects
• 🙏 Credits
• 📝 License

✨ Live instance

The live instance operates with a rate limit applied per second, shared across all endpoints. You can view the current rate limit on the home page, and this limit may be adjusted as needed. For higher request throughput, consider hosting your own instance on a dedicated server 👍

• Live instance (Redoc documentation) : https://overfast-api.tekrop.fr/
• Swagger UI : https://overfast-api.tekrop.fr/docs
• Status page : https://uptime-overfast-api.tekrop.fr/

🐋 Run for production

Running the project is straightforward. Ensure you have docker and docker compose installed. Next, generate a .env file using the provided .env.dist template. Finally, execute the following command:

make up

💽 Run as developer

Same as earlier, ensure you have docker and docker compose installed, and generate a .env file using the provided .env.dist template. You can customize the .env file according to your requirements to configure the volumes used by the OverFast API.

Then, execute the following commands to launch the dev server :

make build                     # Build the images, needed for all further commands
make start                     # Launch OverFast API (dev mode with autoreload)
make start TESTING_MODE=true   # Launch OverFast API (testing mode, with reverse proxy)

The dev server will be running on the port 8000. Reverse proxy will be running on the port 8080 in testing mode. You can use the make down command to stop and remove the containers. Feel free to type make or make help to access a comprehensive list of all available commands for your reference.

Generic settings

Should you wish to customize according to your specific requirements, here is a detailed list of available settings:

• APP_VOLUME_PATH: Folder for shared app data like logs, Redis save file and dotenv file (app settings)
• APP_PORT: Port for the app container (default is 80).
• APP_BASE_URL : Base URL for exposed links in endpoints like player search and maps listing.

You likely won't need to modify other generic settings, but if you're curious about their functionality, consult the docstrings within the app/config.py file for further details.

Code Quality

The code quality is checked using ruff. I'm also using ruff format for imports ordering and code formatting, enforcing PEP-8 convention on my code. To check the quality of the code, you just have to run the following command :

make lint      # Run ruff linter
make format    # Run ruff formatter

Testing

The code has been tested using unit testing, except some rare parts which are not relevant to test. There are tests on the parsers classes, the common classes, but also on the commands (run in CLI) and the API views (using FastAPI TestClient class).

Running tests with coverage (default)

make test

Running tests with given args (without coverage)

make test PYTEST_ARGS="tests/common"

Pre-commit

The project is using pre-commit framework to ensure code quality before making any commit on the repository. After installing the project dependencies, you can install the pre-commit by using the pre-commit install command.

The configuration can be found in the .pre-commit-config.yaml file. It consists in launching 2 processes on modified files before making any commit :

• ruff for linting and code formatting (with ruff format)
• sourcery for more code quality checks and a lot of simplifications

👨‍💻 Technical details

Computed statistics values

In player career statistics, various conversions are applied for ease of use:

• Duration values are converted to seconds (integer)
• Percent values are represented as integers, omitting the percent symbol
• Integer and float string representations are converted to their respective types

Redis caching

OverFast API integrates a Redis-based cache system, divided into three main components:

• API Cache: This high-level cache associates URIs (cache keys) with raw JSON data. Upon the initial request, if a cache entry exists, the nginx server returns the JSON data directly. Cached values are stored with varying TTL (Time-To-Live) parameters depending on the requested route.
• Player Cache: Specifically designed for the API's players data endpoints, this cache stores both HTML Blizzard pages (profile) and search results (summary) for a given player. Its purpose is to minimize calls to Blizzard servers whenever an associated API Cache is expired, and player's career hasn't changed since last call, by using lastUpdated value from summary. This cache will only expire if not accessed for a given TTL (default is 3 days).
• Search Data Cache: Cache the player search endpoint to store mappings between avatar, namecard, and title URLs and their corresponding IDs. On profile pages, only the ID values are accessible, so we initialize this "Search Data" cache when the app launches.

Below is the current list of TTL values configured for the API cache. The latest values are available on the API homepage.

• Heroes list : 1 day
• Hero specific data : 1 day
• Roles list : 1 day
• Gamemodes list : 1 day
• Maps list : 1 day
• Players career : 1 hour
• Players search : 10 min

🐍 Architecture

Default case

The default case is pretty straightforward. When a User makes an API request, Nginx first checks Redis for cached data :

• If available, Redis returns the data directly to Nginx, which forwards it to the User (cache hit).
• If the cache is empty (cache miss), Nginx sends the request to the App server, which retrieves and parses data from Blizzard.

The App then stores this data in Redis and returns it to Nginx, which sends the response to the User. This approach minimizes external requests and speeds up response times by prioritizing cached data.

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    actor User
    participant Nginx
    participant Redis
    participant App
    participant Blizzard
    User->>+Nginx: Make an API request
    Nginx->>+Redis: Make an API Cache request
    alt API Cache is available
        Redis-->>Nginx: Return API Cache data
        Nginx-->>User: Return API Cache data
    else
        Redis-->>-Nginx: Return no result
        Nginx->>+App: Transmit the request to App server
        App->>+Blizzard: Retrieve data
        Blizzard-->>-App: Return data
        App->>App: Parse HTML page
        App->>Redis: Store data into API Cache
        App-->>-Nginx: Return API data
        Nginx-->>-User: Return API data
    end

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Player profile case

The player profile request flow is similar to the previous setup, but with an extra layer of caching for player-specific data, including HTML data (profile page) and player search data (JSON data).

When a User makes an API request, Nginx checks Redis for cached API data. If found, it’s returned directly. If not, Nginx forwards the request to the App server.

It then retrieves Search data from Blizzard and checks a Player Cache in Redis :

• If the player data is cached and up-to-date (lastUpdated from Search data has not changed), App parses it
• If not, App retrieves and parses the data from Blizzard, then stores it in both the Player Cache and API Cache.

This additional Player Cache layer reduces external calls for player-specific data, especially when player career hasn't changed, improving performance and response times.

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    actor User
    participant Nginx
    participant Redis
    participant App
    participant Blizzard
    User->>+Nginx: Make an API request
    Nginx->>+Redis: Make an API Cache request
    alt API Cache is available
        Redis-->>Nginx: Return API Cache data
        Nginx-->>User: Return API Cache data
    else
        Redis-->>-Nginx: Return no result
        Nginx->>+App: Transmit the request to App server
        App->>+Blizzard: Make a Player Search request
        Blizzard-->>-App: Return Player Search data
        App->>+Redis: Make Player Cache request
        alt Player Cache is available and up-to-date
            Redis-->>App: Return Player Cache
            App->>App: Parse HTML page
        else
            Redis-->>-App: Return no result
            App->>+Blizzard: Retrieve Player data (HTML)
            Blizzard-->>-App: Return Player data
            App->>App: Parse HTML page
            App->>Redis: Store data into Player Cache
        end
        App->>Redis: Store data into API Cache
        App-->>-Nginx: Return API data
        Nginx-->>-User: Return API data
    end

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions, issues and feature requests are welcome ! Do you want to update the heroes data (health, armor, shields, etc.) or the maps list ? Don't hesitate to consult the dedicated CONTRIBUTING file.

🚀 Community projects

Projects using OverFast API as a data source are listed below. Using it in your project? Reach out via email with your project link, and I'll add it!

• Counterwatch, enhances your Overwatch 2 experience (https://www.counterwatch.app)
• Datastrike, analysis and results tracking tool (https://datastrike.cloud)
• Discord Bot OW2 for stats (https://github.com/polsojac/ow2discordbot)
• OverBot, the best Overwatch bot for Discord (https://github.com/davidetacchini/overbot)
• Overfast API client (https://github.com/Sipixer/overfast-api-client)
• Overwatch Career Profile (https://github.com/EliaRenov/ow-career-profile)
• OverwatchPy, a Python wrapper for the API (https://github.com/alexraskin/overwatchpy)
• OWCOUNTER, a tool to help players learn and improve their hero selection and team strategy (https://owcounter.com/)
• Watch Over, mobile app by @Backxtar (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.backxtar.watchoveroverwatch)

🙏 Credits

All maps screenshots hosted by the API are owned by Blizzard. Sources :

• Blizzard Press Center (https://blizzard.gamespress.com)
• Overwatch Wiki (https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/)

📝 License

Copyright © 2021-2024 Valentin PORCHET.

This project is MIT licensed.