input: from typing import List
  
  
  def most_common_item(items: List[str]) -> str:
      """ Find and return the most common item in a given list of items. If there are 
      multiple items with the same highest frequency, return the one that appears first 
      in the list.
      >>> most_common_item(['apple', 'banana', 'apple', 'banana', 'cherry'])
      'apple'
      >>> most_common_item(['x', 'y', 'z', 'x', 'y', 'x'])
      'x'
      """
output:     frequency = {}
      for item in items:
          if item in frequency:
              frequency[item] += 1
          else:
              frequency[item] = 1
      
      max_freq = 0
      most_common = None
      for item in items:
          if frequency[item] > max_freq:
              max_freq = frequency[item]
              most_common = item
      
      return most_common