bpy.types.Operator on execution blocks Blender interactions while running - Help?

Contributing to Blender
,
1

Hey all,

I am new to Blender python programming, and for a personal project am playing around with creating a Blender python addon where I can do an async get request when I select a button in a panel (custom operator). See example code below. My current issue is that when I select the operator it seems to be blocking any other Blender interactions until the async call has finished running. Any suggestions/examples for how I can have the operator logic not block? I’d still like the user to be able to continue with editing their models, etc while these api calls/downloads happen.

import bpy
import json
import asyncio
import aiohttp

from bpy.types import Operator, Panel

           
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Operators
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------             
# TODO: RENAME TO SEARCH      
class ADDON_OT_test(Operator): 
    bl_idname = "addon.search"
    bl_label = "Search" 
                
    def execute(self, context):
        scene = context.scene
        mytool = scene.my_properties
            
             
        # Endpoint Resource Path 
        assets_url = "someurl"
                
        # Request Body
        assets_query_body = { }
    
        # Request Headers
        headers = { }
        
        x = asyncio.run(fetch_data(assets_url, assets_query_body, headers))

        if x is None:
            self.report({'ERROR'}, "something went wrong")
        else:
            beautify_data = json.dumps(x, indent=4)
            print(beautify_data)
            self.report({'INFO'}, "all done")
        
        return {'FINISHED'} 
      
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Panels
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

class ADDON_PT_browse_search_panel(Panel):
    bl_idname = "ADDON_PT_Search_Results"
    bl_label = "Search Results"

    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    
    def draw  (self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        mytool = scene.my_properties
        
        layout.operator("addon.search", text="Search")
        
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Additional Functionality
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------          
async def fetch_data(url, query_params=None, headers=None):
    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
        async with session.get(url, params=query_params, headers=headers) as response:
            print("Status:", response.status)
            if response.status == 200:
                print(response.status)
                return await response.json()
            else:
                print(response.status)
                return None    

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Register/Deregister
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
classes = [
    ADDON_PT_browse_search_panel,
    ADDON_OT_test
]

def register():
    for cls in classes: 
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    for cls in reversed(classes): 
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()