Cookiecutter Django

Documentation: https://cookiecutter-django.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
See Troubleshooting for common errors and obstacles
If you have problems with Cookiecutter Django, please open issues don't send emails to the maintainers.

Features

For Django 5.0
Works with Python 3.12
Renders Django projects with 100% starting test coverage
Twitter Bootstrap v5
12-Factor based settings via django-environ
Secure by default. We believe in SSL.
Optimized development and production settings
Registration via django-allauth
Comes with custom user model ready to go
Optional basic ASGI setup for Websockets
Optional custom static build using Gulp or Webpack
Send emails via Anymail (using Mailgun by default or Amazon SES if AWS is selected cloud provider, but switchable)
Media storage using Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Storage or nginx
Docker support using docker-compose for development and production (using Traefik with LetsEncrypt support)
Procfile for deploying to Heroku
Instructions for deploying to PythonAnywhere
Run tests with unittest or pytest
Customizable PostgreSQL version
Default integration with pre-commit for identifying simple issues before submission to code review

Optional Integrations

These features can be enabled during initial project setup.

Serve static files from Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Storage or Whitenoise
Configuration for Celery and Flower (the latter in Docker setup only)
Integration with Mailpit for local email testing
Integration with Sentry for error logging

Constraints

Only maintained 3rd party libraries are used.
Uses PostgreSQL everywhere: 12 - 16 (MySQL fork also available).
Environment variables for configuration (This won't work with Apache/mod_wsgi).

Support this Project!

This project is an open source project run by volunteers. You can sponsor us via OpenCollective or individually via GitHub Sponsors:

Daniel Roy Greenfeld, Project Lead (GitHub, Patreon): expertise in Django and AWS ELB.
Fabio C. Barrionuevo, Core Developer (GitHub): expertise in Python/Django, hands-on DevOps and frontend experience.
Bruno Alla, Core Developer (GitHub): expertise in Python/Django and DevOps.
Nikita Shupeyko, Core Developer (GitHub): expertise in Python/Django, hands-on DevOps and frontend experience.

Projects that provide financial support to the maintainers:

Two Scoops of Django

Two Scoops of Django 3.x is the best ice cream-themed Django reference in the universe!

PyUp

PyUp brings you automated security and dependency updates used by Google and other organizations. Free for open source projects!

Usage

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>=1.7.0"

Now run it against this repo:

$ cookiecutter https://github.com/cookiecutter/cookiecutter-django

You'll be prompted for some values. Provide them, then a Django project will be created for you.

Warning: After this point, change 'Daniel Greenfeld', 'pydanny', etc to your own information.

Answer the prompts with your own desired options. For example:

Cloning into 'cookiecutter-django'...
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 [My Awesome Project]: Reddit Clone
project_slug [reddit_clone]: reddit
description [Behold My Awesome Project!]: A reddit clone.
author_name [Daniel Roy Greenfeld]: Daniel Greenfeld
domain_name [example.com]: myreddit.com
email [daniel-greenfeld@example.com]: pydanny@gmail.com
version [0.1.0]: 0.0.1
Select open_source_license:
1 - MIT
2 - BSD
3 - GPLv3
4 - Apache Software License 2.0
5 - Not open source
Choose from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 [1]: 1
Select username_type:
1 - username
2 - email
Choose from 1, 2 [1]: 1
timezone [UTC]: America/Los_Angeles
windows [n]: n
Select an editor to use. The choices are:
1 - None
2 - PyCharm
3 - VS Code
Choose from 1, 2, 3 [1]: 1
use_docker [n]: n
Select postgresql_version:
1 - 16
2 - 15
3 - 14
4 - 13
5 - 12
Choose from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 [1]: 1
Select cloud_provider:
1 - AWS
2 - GCP
3 - None
Choose from 1, 2, 3 [1]: 1
Select mail_service:
1 - Mailgun
2 - Amazon SES
3 - Mailjet
4 - Mandrill
5 - Postmark
6 - Sendgrid
7 - Brevo (formerly SendinBlue)
8 - SparkPost
9 - Other SMTP
Choose from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 [1]: 1
use_async [n]: n
use_drf [n]: y
Select frontend_pipeline:
1 - None
2 - Django Compressor
3 - Gulp
4 - Webpack
Choose from 1, 2, 3, 4 [1]: 1
use_celery [n]: y
use_mailpit [n]: n
use_sentry [n]: y
use_whitenoise [n]: n
use_heroku [n]: y
Select ci_tool:
1 - None
2 - Travis
3 - Gitlab
4 - Github
Choose from 1, 2, 3, 4 [1]: 4
keep_local_envs_in_vcs [y]: y
debug [n]: n

Enter the project and take a look around:

$ cd reddit/
$ ls

Create a git 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?

For local development, see the following:

Community

Have questions? Before you ask questions anywhere else, please post your question on Stack Overflow under the cookiecutter-django tag. We check there periodically for questions.
If you think you found a bug or want to request a feature, please open an issue.
For anything else, you can chat with us on Discord.

For Readers of Two Scoops of Django

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.

For PyUp Users

If you are using PyUp to keep your dependencies updated and secure, use the code cookiecutter during checkout to get 15% off every month.

"Your Stuff"

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.

For MySQL users

To get full MySQL support in addition to the default Postgresql, you can use this fork of the cookiecutter-django: https://github.com/mabdullahadeel/cookiecutter-django-mysql

Releases

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

Not Exactly What You Want?

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

Fork This

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 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.

Submit a Pull Request

We accept pull requests if they're small, atomic, and make our own project development experience better.

Articles

Why cookiecutter-django is Essential for Your Next Django Project - Aug. 4, 2024
How to Make Your Own Django Cookiecutter Template! - Aug. 10, 2023
Cookiecutter Django With Amazon RDS - Apr, 2, 2021
Complete Walkthrough: Blue/Green Deployment to AWS ECS using GitHub actions - June 10, 2020
Using cookiecutter-django with Google Cloud Storage - Mar. 12, 2019
cookiecutter-django with Nginx, Route 53 and ELB - Feb. 12, 2018
cookiecutter-django and Amazon RDS - Feb. 7, 2018
Using Cookiecutter to Jumpstart a Django Project on Windows with PyCharm - May 19, 2017
Exploring with Cookiecutter - Dec. 3, 2016
Introduction to Cookiecutter-Django - Feb. 19, 2016
Django and GitLab - Running Continuous Integration and tests with your FREE account - May. 11, 2016
Development and Deployment of Cookiecutter-Django on Fedora - Jan. 18, 2016
Development and Deployment of Cookiecutter-Django via Docker - Dec. 29, 2015
How to create a Django Application using Cookiecutter and Django 1.8 - Sept. 12, 2015

Have a blog or online publication? Write about your cookiecutter-django tips and tricks, then send us a pull request with the