Underlying frameworks

Flask - Web framework

Flask is a lightweight WSGI web application framework. It is designed to make getting started quick and easy, with the ability to scale up to complex applications.

Our API server is based on the Flask framework due to it's lightweight nature, high extensibility, and vast community. While, unlike some similar frameworks, Flask does not natively support Web Sockets, this functionality is added in via Gevent.

Marshmallow - Object serialisation/deserialisation

The LabThings API relies on the conversion between arbitrary Python objects, and useful JSON representations of these objects. Marshmallow provides a simple framework for this conversion process.

It also introduces a standard set of data types that are used to define and parse expected arguments for API requests, and automatically generate full interactive API documentation.