A cookiecutter template for Django.

• For Django 1.8

• 12-Factor based settings via django-environ
• Database configuration via dj-database-url
• Security checking via django-secure
• Internationalization support via django-localflavor
• Improved Admin experience via django-grappelli

• Useful mixins via django-braces
• Better forms via django-floppyforms
• Useful model tools via django-model-utils
• Model version management via django-reversion
• Markdown support via django-markdown

• Improved shell experience via ipython
• Further improved shell experience via ptpython
• Helpers and improved development server via django-extensions
• Debug easily with the django-debug-toolbar
• Verify your test coverage with coverage
• Insure your code is PEP8 compliant with flake8
• Grunt build for compass, uglify, imagemin and livereload

• Registration via django-allauth

• REST API Creation support via django-rest-framework
• REST powered authentication and registration via django-rest-auth

• Basic caching setup
• Optimized development and production settings
• Procfile for deploying to Heroku
• Basic e-mail configurations for send emails via SendGrid
• Serve static files from Amazon S3 or Whitenoise (optional)

• Only maintained 3rd party libraries are used.
• PostgreSQL everywhere (9.0+)
• Environment variables for configuration (This won't work with Apache/mod_wsgi).

Let's pretend you want to create a Django project called "redditclone". Rather than using startproject and then editing the results to include your name, email, and various configuration issues that always get forgotten until the worst possible moment, get cookiecutter to do all the work.

First, get cookiecutter. Trust me, it's awesome:

$ pip install cookiecutter

Now run it against this repo:

$ cookiecutter https://github.com/wldcordeiro/cookiecutter-django-essentials.git

You'll be prompted for some questions, answer them, then it will create a Django project for you.

Warning: After this point, change 'Wellington Cordeiro', 'wldcordeiro', etc to your own information.

It prompts you for questions. Answer them:

Cloning into 'cookiecutter-django-essentials'...
remote: Counting objects: 550, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (310/310), done.
remote: Total 550 (delta 283), reused 479 (delta 222)
Receiving objects: 100% (550/550), 127.66 KiB | 58 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (283/283), done.
project_name (default is "project_name is the title of the project")? Reddit Clone
repo_name (default is "repo_name")? redditclone
repo_url (default is "repo_url is the url for your repo, minus '.git'")? http://github.com/foo/redditclone
author_name (default is "Your Name")? Wellington Cordeiro
author_github_username (default is "@yourusername") @wldcordeiro
email (default is "Your email")? wellington@wellingtoncordeiro.com
description (default is "A short description of the project.")? A reddit clone.
year (default is "Current year")? 2015
domain_name (default is "Domain name")? redditclone.org
version (default is "0.1.0")? 1.0.0
now (default is "2015/01/05")? 2015/01/10
time_zone (default is "America/Denver")? America/Denver
port (default is "8080")? 8082
database_name (default is "database")? testdb
database_user (default is "dbuser")? testuser
database_password (default is"password")? awesomepassword
use_whitenoise (default is "y")?

Enter the project and take a look around:

$ cd redditclone/
$ ls

Create a GitHub repo and push it there:

$ git init
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "first awesome commit"
$ git remote add origin git@github.com:pydanny/redditclone.git
$ git push -u origin master

Now take a look at your repo. Don't forget to carefully look at the generated README. Awesome, right?

The steps below will get you up and running with a local development environment. We assume you have the following installed:

• pip
• virtualenv
• PostgreSQL

First make sure to create and activate a virtualenv, then open a terminal at the project root and install the requirements for local development:

$ pip install -r requirements/local.txt

Then, create a PostgreSQL database and add the database configuration using the dj-database-url app pattern: postgres://db_owner:password@dbserver_ip:port/db_name either:

• in the config.settings.common.py setting file,
• or in the environment variable DATABASE_URL

You can now run the usual Django migrate and runserver command:

$ python manage.py migrate

$ python manage.py runserver

$ python yourapp/manage.py runserver

Though it's better if you run:

$ grunt serve

Since this will run the server and minify your Javascript, compile your SCSS and minify your images.

The base app will run but you'll need to create your super user:

$ python yourapp/manage.py createsuperuser

Live reloading and Sass CSS compilation

If you'd like to take advantage of live reloading and Sass / Compass CSS compilation you can do so with the included Grunt task.

Make sure that nodejs is installed. Then in the project root run:

$ npm install

Now you just need:

$ grunt serve

The base app will now run as it would with the usual manage.py runserver_plus but with live reloading and Sass compilation enabled.

To get live reloading to work you'll probably need to install an appropriate browser extension

It's time to write the code!!!

You may notice that some elements of this project do not exactly match what we describe in chapter 3. The reason for that is this project, amongst other things, serves as a test bed for trying out new ideas and concepts. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but the end result is that it won't necessarily match precisely what is described in the book I co-authored.

Scattered throughout the Python and HTML of this project are places marked with "your stuff". This is where third-party libraries are to be integrated with your project.

Want a stable release? You can find them at https://github.com/wldcordeiro/cookiecutter-django-essentials/releases

This is what I want. It might not be what you want. Don't worry, you have options:

If you have differences in your preferred setup, I encourage you to fork this to create your own version. Once you have your fork working, let me know and I'll add it to a 'Similar Cookiecutter Templates' list here. It's up to you whether or not to rename your fork.

If you do rename your fork, I encourage you to submit it to the following places:

• cookiecutter so it gets listed in the README as a template.
• The cookiecutter grid on Django Packages.

I also accept pull requests on this, if they're small, atomic, and if they make my own project development experience better.