diff --git a/dev_requirements.in b/dev_requirements.in
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c3b3d70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dev_requirements.in
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+black
+flake8
+invoke
+pip-tools>=5.4.0
+pytest
+requests
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/services/api/dev_requirements.txt b/dev_requirements.txt
similarity index 81%
rename from services/api/dev_requirements.txt
rename to dev_requirements.txt
index 328ebba..3c1d5a6 100644
--- a/services/api/dev_requirements.txt
+++ b/dev_requirements.txt
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 # This file is autogenerated by pip-compile
 # To update, run:
 #
-#    pip-compile dev_requirements.in
+#    pip-compile --output-file=dev_requirements.txt dev_requirements.in
 #
 appdirs==1.4.3            # via black
 attrs==19.3.0             # via black, pytest
@@ -13,11 +13,12 @@ click==7.0                # via black, pip-tools
 entrypoints==0.3          # via flake8
 flake8==3.7.9             # via -r dev_requirements.in
 idna==2.8                 # via requests
+invoke==1.4.1             # via -r dev_requirements.in
 mccabe==0.6.1             # via flake8
 more-itertools==8.2.0     # via pytest
 packaging==20.1           # via pytest
 pathspec==0.7.0           # via black
-pip-tools==4.4.1          # via -r dev_requirements.in
+pip-tools==5.4.0          # via -r dev_requirements.in
 pluggy==0.13.1            # via pytest
 py==1.8.1                 # via pytest
 pycodestyle==2.5.0        # via flake8
@@ -31,3 +32,6 @@ toml==0.10.0              # via black
 typed-ast==1.4.1          # via black
 urllib3==1.25.8           # via requests
 wcwidth==0.1.8            # via pytest
+
+# The following packages are considered to be unsafe in a requirements file:
+# pip
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..68dca4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+[tool.black]
+line-length = 100
+skip-string-normalization = true
+target-version = ['py38']
+exclude = '''
+(
+    ^/\.git/
+  | ^/build/
+  | ^/node_modules/
+)
+'''
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/services/api/dev_requirements.in b/services/api/dev_requirements.in
deleted file mode 100644
index 51e72bb..0000000
--- a/services/api/dev_requirements.in
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-black
-flake8
-pip-tools
-pytest
-requests
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/tasks.py b/tasks.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e21ccae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tasks.py
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+from invoke import task
+
+UNVICORN_CMD = "uvicorn app.main:app --reload --workers 1 --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000"
+
+
+@task
+def serve(c):
+    """Serves the fast_api app for local development"""
+    c.run(f"pushd services/api && {UNVICORN_CMD}")