DJANGO-ADMIN(1)

📦
version 6.1.2 · 5 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the DJANGO-ADMIN(1) manual page for Django! ✨ django-admin is Django's command-line utility for administrative tasks. This document outlines all it can do.

In addition, manage.py is automatically created in each Django project. It does the same thing as django-admin but also sets the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable so that it points to your project's settings.py file.

The django-admin script should be on your system path if you installed Django via pip. If it's not in your path, ensure you have your virtual environment activated.

Generally, when working on a single Django project, it's easier to use manage.py than django-admin. If you need to switch between multiple Django settings files, use django-admin with DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or the --settings command line option.

The command-line examples throughout this document use django-admin to be consistent, but any example can use manage.py or python -m django just as well.

🌈 USAGE 🌈

$ django-admin <command> [options]
$ manage.py <command> [options]
$ python -m django <command> [options]

command should be one of the commands listed in this document. options, which is optional, should be zero or more of the options available for the given command.

✨ Getting runtime help ✨

django-admin help

Run django-admin help to display usage information and a list of the commands provided by each application.

Run django-admin help --commands to display a list of all available commands.

Run django-admin help <command> to display a description of the given command and a list of its available options.

🦋 App names 🦋

Many commands take a list of "app names." An "app name" is the basename of the package containing your models. For example, if your INSTALLED_APPS contains the string 'mysite.blog', the app name is blog.

🌸 Determining the version 🌸

django-admin version

Run django-admin version to display the current Django version.

The output follows the schema described in PEP 440 (https://peps.python.org/pep-0440/):

1.4.dev17026
1.4a1
1.4

💅 Displaying debug output 💅

Use --verbosity, where it is supported, to specify the amount of notification and debug information that django-admin prints to the console.

👑 AVAILABLE COMMANDS 👑

🎀 check 🎀

django-admin check [app_label [app_label ...]]

Uses the system check framework to inspect the entire Django project for common problems.

By default, all apps will be checked. You can check a subset of apps by providing a list of app labels as arguments:

django-admin check auth admin myapp
  • --tag TAGS, -t TAGS — The system check framework performs many different types of checks that are categorized with tags. You can use these tags to restrict the checks performed to just those in a particular category. For example, to perform only models and compatibility checks, run:
django-admin check --tag models --tag compatibility
  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database to run checks requiring database access:
django-admin check --database default --database other

By default, these checks will not be run.

  • --list-tags — Lists all available tags.
  • --deploy — Activates some additional checks that are only relevant in a deployment setting.

You can use this option in your local development environment, but since your local development settings module may not have many of your production settings, you will probably want to point the check command at a different settings module, either by setting the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable, or by passing the --settings option:

django-admin check --deploy --settings=production_settings

Or you could run it directly on a production or staging deployment to verify that the correct settings are in use (omitting --settings). You could even make it part of your integration test suite.

  • --fail-level {CRITICAL,ERROR,WARNING,INFO,DEBUG} — Specifies the message level that will cause the command to exit with a non-zero status. Default is ERROR.

🧚 compilemessages 🧚

django-admin compilemessages

Compiles .po files created by makemessages to .mo files for use with the built-in gettext support. See Internationalization and localization.

  • --locale LOCALE, -l LOCALE — Specifies the locale(s) to process. If not provided, all locales are processed.
  • --exclude EXCLUDE, -x EXCLUDE — Specifies the locale(s) to exclude from processing. If not provided, no locales are excluded.
  • --use-fuzzy, -f — Includes fuzzy translations (https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Fuzzy-Entries.html) into compiled files.

Example usage:

django-admin compilemessages --locale=pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages --locale=pt_BR --locale=fr -f
django-admin compilemessages -l pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages -l pt_BR -l fr --use-fuzzy
django-admin compilemessages --exclude=pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages --exclude=pt_BR --exclude=fr
django-admin compilemessages -x pt_BR
django-admin compilemessages -x pt_BR -x fr

Example usage:

django-admin compilemessages --ignore=node_modules --ignore=outdated/*/locale

🍓 createcachetable 🍓

django-admin createcachetable

Creates the cache tables for use with the database cache backend using the information from your settings file. See Django's cache framework for more information.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database in which the cache table(s) will be created. Defaults to default.
  • --dry-run — Prints the SQL that would be run without actually running it, so you can customize it or use the migrations framework.

💜 dbshell 💜

django-admin dbshell

Runs the command-line client for the database engine specified in your ENGINE setting, with the connection parameters specified in your USER, PASSWORD, etc., settings.

  • For PostgreSQL, this runs the psql command-line client.
  • For MySQL, this runs the mysql command-line client.
  • For SQLite, this runs the sqlite3 command-line client.
  • For Oracle, this runs the sqlplus command-line client.

This command assumes the programs are on your PATH so that a call to the program name (psql, mysql, sqlite3, sqlplus) will find the program in the right place. There's no way to specify the location of the program manually.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database onto which to open a shell. Defaults to default.
  • -- ARGUMENTS — Any arguments following a -- divider will be passed on to the underlying command-line client. For example, with PostgreSQL you can use the psql command's -c flag to execute a raw SQL query directly:
$ django-admin dbshell -- -c 'select current_user'
 current_user
--------------
 postgres
(1 row)

On MySQL/MariaDB, you can do this with the mysql command's -e flag:

$ django-admin dbshell -- -e "select user()"
+----------------------+
| user()               |
+----------------------+
| djangonaut@localhost |
+----------------------+
Note: Be aware that not all options set in the OPTIONS part of your database configuration in DATABASES are passed to the command-line client, e.g. 'isolation_level'.

⭐ diffsettings ⭐

django-admin diffsettings

Displays differences between the current settings file and Django's default settings (or another settings file specified by --default).

Settings that don't appear in the defaults are followed by "###". For example, the default settings don't define ROOT_URLCONF, so ROOT_URLCONF is followed by "###" in the output of diffsettings.

  • --all — Displays all settings, even if they have Django's default value. Such settings are prefixed by "###".
  • --default MODULE — The settings module to compare the current settings against. Leave empty to compare against Django's default settings.
  • --output {hash,unified} — Specifies the output format. Available values are hash and unified. hash is the default mode that displays the output that's described above. unified displays the output similar to diff -u. Default settings are prefixed with a minus sign, followed by the changed setting prefixed with a plus sign.

🌟 dumpdata 🌟

django-admin dumpdata [app_label[.ModelName] [app_label[.ModelName] ...]]

Outputs to standard output all data in the database associated with the named application(s).

If no application name is provided, all installed applications will be dumped.

The output of dumpdata can be used as input for loaddata.

When result of dumpdata is saved as a file, it can serve as a fixture for tests or as an initial data.

Note that dumpdata uses the default manager on the model for selecting the records to dump. If you're using a custom manager as the default manager and it filters some of the available records, not all of the objects will be dumped.

  • --all, -a — Uses Django's base manager, dumping records which might otherwise be filtered or modified by a custom manager.
  • --format FORMAT — Specifies the serialization format of the output. Defaults to JSON. Supported formats are listed in Serialization formats.
  • --indent INDENT — Specifies the number of indentation spaces to use in the output. Defaults to None which displays all data on single line.
  • --exclude EXCLUDE, -e EXCLUDE — Prevents specific applications or models (specified in the form of app_label.ModelName) from being dumped. If you specify a model name, then only that model will be excluded, rather than the entire application. You can also mix application names and model names.

If you want to exclude multiple applications, pass --exclude more than once:

django-admin dumpdata --exclude=auth --exclude=contenttypes
  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database from which data will be dumped. Defaults to default.
  • --natural-foreign

Uses the natural_key() model method to serialize any foreign key and many-to-many relationship to objects of the type that defines the method. If you're dumping contrib.auth Permission objects or contrib.contenttypes ContentType objects, bestie, you probably want this flag. Go read the natural keys <#topics-serialization-natural-keys> docs for the full tea on this one and the next option. 🫶

  • --natural-primary — Omits the primary key in the serialized data of this object since it can be calculated during deserialization. like, why store what you can just figure out later 💅
  • --pks PRIMARY_KEYS — Outputs only the objects specified by a comma separated list of primary keys. This is only available when dumping one model. By default, all the records of the model are output.
  • --output OUTPUT, -o OUTPUT — Specifies a file to write the serialized data to. By default, the data goes to standard output.

When this option is set and --verbosity is greater than 0 (the default), a progress bar is shown in the terminal. yes, you get a lil progress bar, we love that for you ✨

Fixtures compression 🗜️

The output file can be compressed with one of the bz2, gz, lzma, or xz formats by ending the filename with the corresponding extension. For example, to output the data as a compressed JSON file:

django-admin dumpdata -o mydata.json.gz

flush 💖

django-admin flush

Removes all data from the database and re-executes any post-synchronization handlers. The table of which migrations have been applied is not cleared. not cleared, bestie — read that twice

If you would rather start from an empty database and rerun all migrations, you should drop and recreate the database and then run migrate instead.

  • --noinput, --no-input — Suppresses all user prompts. no "are you sure??" popups, it just sends it 😤
  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database to flush. Defaults to default.

inspectdb 🔍

django-admin inspectdb [table [table ...]]

Introspects the database tables in the database pointed-to by the NAME <#std-setting-NAME> setting and outputs a Django model module (a models.py file) to standard output. it literally writes your models for you, main character energy fr fr 👑

You may choose what tables or views to inspect by passing their names as arguments. If no arguments are provided, models are created for views only if the --include-views option is used. Models for partition tables are created on PostgreSQL if the --include-partitions option is used.

Use this if you have a legacy database with which you'd like to use Django. The script will inspect the database and create a model for each table within it.

As you might expect, the created models will have an attribute for every field in the table. Note that inspectdb has a few special cases in its field-name output:

  • If inspectdb cannot map a column's type to a model field type, it'll use TextField and will insert the Python comment 'This field type is a guess.' next to the field in the generated model. The recognized fields may depend on apps listed in INSTALLED_APPS <#std-setting-INSTALLED_APPS>. For example, django.contrib.postgres <#module-django.contrib.postgres> adds recognition for several PostgreSQL-specific field types.
  • If the database column name is a Python reserved word (such as 'pass', 'class' or 'for'), inspectdb will append '_field' to the attribute name. For example, if a table has a column 'for', the generated model will have a field 'for_field', with the db_column attribute set to 'for'. inspectdb will insert the Python comment 'Field renamed because it was a Python reserved word.' next to the field.

This feature is meant as a shortcut, not as definitive model generation. After you run it, you'll want to look over the generated models yourself to make customizations. In particular, you'll need to rearrange models' order, so that models that refer to other models are ordered properly. tl;dr: it's a starting point, not a finished masterpiece — go edit it 🙈

Django doesn't create database defaults when a default <#django.db.models.Field.default> is specified on a model field. Similarly, database defaults aren't translated to model field defaults or detected in any fashion by inspectdb.

By default, inspectdb creates unmanaged models. That is, managed = False in the model's Meta class tells Django not to manage each table's creation, modification, and deletion. If you do want to allow Django to manage the table's lifecycle, you'll need to change the managed <#django.db.models.Options.managed> option to True (or remove it because True is its default value).

Database-specific notes 🌈

Oracle

  • Models are created for materialized views if --include-views is used.

PostgreSQL

  • Models are created for foreign tables.
  • Models are created for materialized views if --include-views is used.
  • Models are created for partition tables if --include-partitions is used.
  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database to introspect. Defaults to default.
  • --include-partitions — If this option is provided, models are also created for partitions.

Only support for PostgreSQL is implemented.

  • --include-views — If this option is provided, models are also created for database views.

loaddata 🍓

django-admin loaddata fixture [fixture ...]

Searches for and loads the contents of the named fixture <#fixtures-explanation> into the database.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database into which the data will be loaded. Defaults to default.
  • --ignorenonexistent, -i — Ignores fields and models that may have been removed since the fixture was originally generated.
  • --app APP_LABEL — Specifies a single app to look for fixtures in rather than looking in all apps.
  • --format FORMAT — Specifies the serialization format <#serialization-formats> (e.g., json or xml) for fixtures read from stdin.
  • --exclude EXCLUDE, -e EXCLUDE — Excludes loading the fixtures from the given applications and/or models (in the form of app_label or app_label.ModelName). Use the option multiple times to exclude more than one app or model.

Loading fixtures from stdin 📥

You can use a dash as the fixture name to load input from sys.stdin. For example:

django-admin loaddata --format=json -

When reading from stdin, the --format option is required to specify the serialization format <#serialization-formats> of the input (e.g., json or xml).

Loading from stdin is useful with standard input and output redirections. For example:

django-admin dumpdata --format=json --database=test app_label.ModelName | django-admin loaddata --format=json --database=prod -

The dumpdata command can be used to generate input for loaddata. pipe it straight in, that's the whole vibe 🌸

See also: For more detail about fixtures see the Fixtures <#fixtures-explanation> topic.

makemessages 💬

django-admin makemessages

Runs over the entire source tree of the current directory and pulls out all strings marked for translation. It creates (or updates) a message file in the conf/locale (in the Django tree) or locale (for project and application) directory. After making changes to the messages files you need to compile them with compilemessages for use with the builtin gettext support. See the i18n documentation <#how-to-create-language-files> for details.

This command doesn't require configured settings. However, when settings aren't configured, the command can't ignore the MEDIA_ROOT <#std-setting-MEDIA_ROOT> and STATIC_ROOT <#std-setting-STATIC_ROOT> directories or include LOCALE_PATHS <#std-setting-LOCALE_PATHS>.

  • --all, -a — Updates the message files for all available languages. all of them. every last one 💅
  • --extension EXTENSIONS, -e EXTENSIONS — Specifies a list of file extensions to examine (default: html, txt, py or js if --domain is djangojs).

Example usage:

django-admin makemessages --locale=de --extension xhtml

Separate multiple extensions with commas or use -e or --extension multiple times:

django-admin makemessages --locale=de --extension=html,txt --extension xml
  • --locale LOCALE, -l LOCALE — Specifies the locale(s) to process.
  • --exclude EXCLUDE, -x EXCLUDE — Specifies the locale(s) to exclude from processing. If not provided, no locales are excluded.

Example usage:

django-admin makemessages --locale=pt_BR
django-admin makemessages --locale=pt_BR --locale=fr
django-admin makemessages -l pt_BR
django-admin makemessages -l pt_BR -l fr
django-admin makemessages --exclude=pt_BR
django-admin makemessages --exclude=pt_BR --exclude=fr
django-admin makemessages -x pt_BR
django-admin makemessages -x pt_BR -x fr
  • --domain DOMAIN, -d DOMAIN — Specifies the domain of the messages files. Supported options are:
    • django for all *.py, *.html and *.txt files (default)
    • djangojs for *.js files
  • --symlinks, -s — Follows symlinks to directories when looking for new translation strings.

Example usage:

django-admin makemessages --locale=de --symlinks

These patterns are used by default: 'CVS', '.*', '*~', '*.pyc'.

Example usage:

django-admin makemessages --locale=en_US --ignore=apps/* --ignore=secret/*.html
  • --no-default-ignore — Disables the default values of --ignore.
  • --no-wrap — Disables breaking long message lines into several lines in language files.
  • --no-location — Suppresses writing '#: filename:line' comment lines in language files. Using this option makes it harder for technically skilled translators to understand each message's context. ngl that's kind of rude to your translators 😭
  • --add-location [{full,file,never}] — Controls #: filename:line comment lines in language files. If the option is:
    • full (the default if not given): the lines include both file name and line number.
    • file: the line number is omitted.
    • never: the lines are suppressed (same as --no-location).

Requires gettext 0.19 or newer.

  • --no-obsolete — Removes obsolete message strings from the .po files.
  • --keep-pot — Prevents deleting the temporary .pot files generated before creating the .po file. This is useful for debugging errors which may prevent the final language files from being created. 🐛

See also: See Customizing the makemessages command <#customizing-makemessages> for instructions on how to customize the keywords that makemessages passes to xgettext.

makemigrations 🧚

django-admin makemigrations [app_label [app_label ...]]

Creates new migrations based on the changes detected to your models. Migrations, their relationship with apps and more are covered in depth in the migrations documentation <>. the migration files don't write themselves, bestie — well, okay, this command does write them, that's literally the point ✨

Providing one or more app names as arguments will limit the migrations created to the app(s) specified and any dependencies needed (the table at the other end of a ForeignKey, for example).

Lowkey the easiest glow-up ever: to add migrations to an app that doesn't have a migrations directory yet, just run makemigrations with that app's app_label. That's it. Directory appears, you're thriving. ✨

  • --noinput, --no-input — shuts down every single user prompt. And if one of those suppressed prompts can't be figured out on its own? The command bails with error code 3. Not a vibe, but it's honest.
  • --empty — spits out an empty migration for the apps you named, so you can hand-edit it yourself. 🖊️ This one is for advanced users only, fr — do not touch it unless you actually know the migration format, migration operations, and the dependency web between your migrations. Otherwise you're gonna have a bad time.
  • --dry-run — shows you what migrations would be made without writing a single migration file to disk. And if you pair it with --verbosity 3, it'll even show you the complete migration files it would have written. Preview queen behavior. 👑
  • --merge — turns on fixing of migration conflicts.
  • --name NAME, -n NAME — lets you name the generated migration(s) yourself instead of accepting whatever auto-generated name it cooked up. Heads up: the name has to be a valid Python identifier <https://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#identifiers>. No vibes-based names, sorry.
  • --no-header — generates migration files with no Django version and timestamp header. Stripped, clean, minimalist. 💅
  • --check — makes makemigrations exit with a non-zero status whenever model changes without migrations get detected. Also, it implies --dry-run.
  • --scriptable — diverts log output and input prompts over to stderr, so only the paths of the generated migration files go to stdout. Perfect for scripting, obviously, that's the whole name.
  • --update — merges model changes into the latest migration and optimizes the resulting operations.

The updated migration will have a generated name. And if you wanna keep the old name? Set it with --name.

🦋 migrate 🦋

django-admin migrate [app_label] [migration_name]

Synchronizes the database state with the current set of models and migrations. Migrations, how they relate to apps, and literally everything else about them gets covered in depth in the migrations documentation <>.

The behavior of this command changes depending on the arguments you hand it, so pay attention bestie:

  • No arguments: all apps have all of their migrations run.
  • <app_label>: the specified app has its migrations run, up to the most recent migration. This may involve running other apps' migrations too, because dependencies are like that.
  • <app_label> <migrationname>: brings the database schema to a state where the named migration is applied, but no later migrations in the same app are applied. This may involve unapplying migrations if you previously migrated past the named migration. You can use a prefix of the migration name, e.g. 0001, as long as it's unique for the given app name. And you can use the name zero to migrate all the way back — i.e. to revert all applied migrations for an app. Full rewind. ⏪
Warning: When you're unapplying migrations, all dependent migrations will also be unapplied, regardless of <app_label>. Yes, even ones from other apps. Use --plan to check exactly which migrations will be unapplied before you do anything dramatic.
  • --database DATABASE — specifies which database to migrate. Defaults to default.
  • --fake — marks the migrations up to the target one (following the rules above) as applied, but without actually running the SQL to change your database schema.
  • --fake-initial — lets Django skip an app's initial migration if all database tables with the names of all models created by all CreateModel <#django.db.migrations.operations.CreateModel> operations in that migration already exist. This is meant for when you're first running migrations against a database that existed before you started using migrations. But — and this matters — it does not check for matching database schema beyond matching table names, so it's only safe if you're genuinely confident your existing schema matches what's recorded in your initial migration. 👀
  • --plan — shows the migration operations that will be performed for the given migrate command.
  • --run-syncdb — allows creating tables for apps that don't have migrations. Not recommended, but the migrations framework is sometimes just too slow on large projects with hundreds of models, and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
  • --noinput, --no-input — suppresses all user prompts. One example prompt is the one asking about removing stale content types.
  • --check — makes migrate exit with a non-zero status when unapplied migrations are detected.
  • --prune — deletes nonexistent migrations from the django_migrations table. Super useful when migration files replaced by a squashed migration have been removed. See Squashing migrations <#migration-squashing> for more details.
On --fake specifically: this is intended for advanced users to manipulate the current migration state directly if they're manually applying changes. Be warned — using --fake runs the risk of putting the migration state table into a state where manual recovery will be needed to make migrations run correctly. It's giving chaos. Don't do it casually. 💀

🌸 optimizemigration 🌸

django-admin optimizemigration app_label migration_name

Optimizes the operations for the named migration and overrides the existing file. If the migration contains functions that must be manually copied, the command instead creates a new migration file suffixed with _optimized that's meant to replace the named migration.

  • --check — makes optimizemigration exit with a non-zero status when a migration can be optimized.

🎀 runserver 🎀

django-admin runserver [addrport]

Starts a lightweight development web server right on your local machine. By default the server runs on port 8000 on the IP address 127.0.0.1. You can also pass in an IP address and port number explicitly if you want something specific.

If you run this script as a user with normal privileges (which, recommended, bestie), you might not have access to start a port on a low port number. Low port numbers are reserved for the superuser (root).

This server uses the WSGI application object specified by the WSGI_APPLICATION <#std-setting-WSGI_APPLICATION> setting.

Warning: DO NOT USE THIS SERVER IN A PRODUCTION SETTING. This lightweight development server has not gone through security audits or performance tests, hence is unsuitable for production. Making this server able to handle a production environment is outside the scope of Django. Periodt.

The development server automatically reloads Python code for each request, as needed, so you don't have to restart the server for code changes to take effect. However — some actions like adding files don't trigger a restart, so you'll have to restart the server manually in those cases. 🙈

If you're on Linux or MacOS and install both pywatchman <https://pypi.org/project/pywatchman/> and the Watchman <https://facebook.github.io/watchman/> service, kernel signals will be used to autoreload the server (rather than polling file modification timestamps every single second). This offers better performance on large projects, reduced response time after code changes, more robust change detection, and a reduction in power usage. Django supports pywatchman 1.2.0 and higher.

Large directories with many files may cause performance issues When using Watchman with a project that includes large non-Python directories like node_modules, it's advisable to ignore this directory for optimal performance. See the watchman documentation <https://facebook.github.io/watchman/docs/config#ignore_dirs> for info on how to do that.
Watchman timeout DJANGO_WATCHMAN_TIMEOUT The default timeout of the Watchman client is 5 seconds. You can change it by setting the DJANGO_WATCHMAN_TIMEOUT environment variable.

When you start the server, and each time you change Python code while the server is running, the system check framework will check your entire Django project for some common errors (see the check command). If any errors are found, they'll be printed to standard output. You can use the --skip-checks option to skip running system checks.

You can run as many concurrent servers as you want, as long as they're on separate ports — just execute django-admin runserver more than once. Multitasking icon. ✨

Note that the default IP address, 127.0.0.1, is not accessible from other machines on your network. To make your development server viewable to other machines on the network, use its own IP address (e.g. 192.168.2.1), 0 (shortcut for 0.0.0.0), 0.0.0.0, or :: (with IPv6 enabled).

You can provide an IPv6 address surrounded by brackets (e.g. [200a::1]:8000). This will automatically enable IPv6 support.

A hostname containing ASCII-only characters can also be used.

If the staticfiles <> contrib app is enabled (which it is by default in new projects) the runserver command will be overridden with its own runserver <#staticfiles-runserver> command.

Logging of each request and response of the server is sent to the django.server <#django-server-logger> logger.

  • --noreload — disables the auto-reloader. Which means any Python code changes you make while the server is running will not take effect if those particular Python modules have already been loaded into memory. Just so you know.
  • --nothreading — disables use of threading in the development server. The server is multithreaded by default.
  • --ipv6, -6 — uses IPv6 for the development server. This changes the default IP address from 127.0.0.1 to ::1.

DJANGO_RUNSERVER_HIDE_WARNING

By default, a warning is printed to the console that runserver is not suitable for production:

WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production setting. Use a production WSGI or ASGI server instead.
For more information on production servers see: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/|version|/howto/deployment/

Set this environment variable to "true" to hide this warning.

🌈 Examples of using different ports and addresses 🌈

Port 8000 on IP address 127.0.0.1:

django-admin runserver

Port 8000 on IP address 1.2.3.4:

django-admin runserver 1.2.3.4:8000

Port 7000 on IP address 127.0.0.1:

django-admin runserver 7000

Port 7000 on IP address 1.2.3.4:

django-admin runserver 1.2.3.4:7000

Port 8000 on IPv6 address ::1:

django-admin runserver -6

Port 7000 on IPv6 address ::1:

django-admin runserver -6 7000

Port 7000 on IPv6 address 2001:0db8:1234:5678::9:

django-admin runserver [2001:0db8:1234:5678::9]:7000

Port 8000 on IPv4 address of host localhost:

django-admin runserver localhost:8000

Port 8000 on IPv6 address of host localhost:

django-admin runserver -6 localhost:8000

🧚 Serving static files with the development server 🧚

By default, the development server doesn't serve any static files for your site — no CSS files, no images, nothing under MEDIA_URL <#std-setting-MEDIA_URL>, none of it. If you want to configure Django to serve static media, read How to manage static files (e.g. images, JavaScript, CSS) <>. Go get your glow-up. 💖

✨ Serving with ASGI in development ✨

So here's the tea: Django's runserver command gives you a WSGI server, that's just what it is. But if you wanna run under ASGI, bestie, you're gonna need an actual ASGI server. The Django Daphne project has this integration with runserver (peep #daphne-runserver) that you can use. 🦋

💌 sendtestemail 💌

django-admin sendtestemail [email [email ...]]

Sends a test email — literally just to confirm that email sending through Django is working — to the recipient(s) you specified. Like:

django-admin sendtestemail foo@example.com bar@example.com

The following options can be used in any combination with each other and with recipient email arguments. Mix and match, bestie 💅

  • --using ALIAS — Specifies the MAILERS alias (#std-setting-MAILERS) to use when sending that test email to the recipients you passed as arguments. Defaults to the "default" mailer.
  • --managers — Mails the email addresses specified in MANAGERS (#std-setting-MANAGERS) using mail_managers() (#django.core.mail.mail_managers).
  • --admins — Mails the email addresses specified in ADMINS (#std-setting-ADMINS) using mail_admins() (#django.core.mail.mail_admins).

🐚 shell 🐚

django-admin shell

Starts the Python interactive interpreter. Main character energy, honestly.

All models from installed apps get auto-imported into the shell environment. Models from apps listed earlier in INSTALLED_APPS (#std-setting-INSTALLED_APPS) take precedence. These common utilities get imported too:

from django.db import connection, reset_queries, models
from django.conf import settings
from django.utils import timezone

If you're running a --verbosity of 2 or higher, the automatically imported objects will be listed out for you. And if you wanna disable automatic importing entirely? Use the --no-imports flag. Periodt.

See the guide on customizing this behavior (#customizing-shell-auto-imports) to add or remove automatic imports.

Automatic imports of common utilities, such as django.conf.settings, were added. 🎀
  • --interface {ipython,bpython,python}, -i {ipython,bpython,python} — Specifies the shell to use. By default, Django will use IPython (https://ipython.org/) or bpython (https://bpython-interpreter.org/) if either one is installed. If both are installed, you gotta say which one you want, like so:

IPython:

django-admin shell -i ipython

bpython:

django-admin shell -i bpython

If you've got a "rich" shell installed but you want to force the "plain" Python interpreter instead, use python as the interface name, like so:

django-admin shell -i python
  • --no-startup — Disables reading the startup script for the "plain" Python interpreter. By default, the script pointed to by the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variable (https://docs.python.org/3/using/cmdline.html#envvar-PYTHONSTARTUP) or the ~/.pythonrc.py script is read.
  • --no-imports — Disables the automatic import of models from INSTALLED_APPS (#std-setting-INSTALLED_APPS).
  • --command COMMAND, -c COMMAND — Lets you pass a command as a string so it executes as Django, like so:
django-admin shell --command="import django; print(django.__version__)"

You can also pass code in on standard input to execute it. For example:

$ django-admin shell <<EOF
> import django
> print(django.__version__)
> EOF
On Windows, the REPL is output due to implementation limits of select.select() (https://docs.python.org/3/library/select.html#select.select) on that platform. 😭

📋 showmigrations 📋

django-admin showmigrations [app_label [app_label ...]]

Shows all migrations in a project. You get to choose from one of two formats:

  • --list, -l — Lists all of the apps Django knows about, the migrations available for each app, and whether or not each migration is applied (marked by an [X] next to the migration name). For a --verbosity of 2 and above, the applied datetimes are also shown.

Apps without migrations are also listed, but they get (no migrations) printed under them.

This is the default output format. 👑

  • --plan, -p — Shows the migration plan Django will follow to apply migrations. Like --list, applied migrations are marked by an [X]. For a --verbosity of 2 and above, all dependencies of a migration will also be shown.

app_labels arguments limit the output, however, dependencies of provided apps may also be included.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database to examine. Defaults to default.

🧹 sqlflush 🧹

django-admin sqlflush

Prints the SQL statements that would be executed for the flush command.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database for which to print the SQL. Defaults to default.

🔍 sqlmigrate 🔍

django-admin sqlmigrate app_label migration_name

Prints the SQL for the named migration. This one requires an active database connection, which it will use to resolve constraint names. Which means: you must generate the SQL against a copy of the database you wish to later apply it on. No cap, this matters.

Note that sqlmigrate doesn't colorize its output. 💀 (sad, we know)
  • --backwards — Generates the SQL for unapplying the migration. By default, the SQL created is for running the migration in the forwards direction.
  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database for which to generate the SQL. Defaults to default.

🔢 sqlsequencereset 🔢

django-admin sqlsequencereset app_label [app_label ...]

Prints the SQL statements for resetting sequences for the given app name(s).

Sequences are indexes used by some database engines to track the next available number for automatically incremented fields.

Use this command to generate SQL which will fix cases where a sequence is out of sync with its automatically incremented field data. Iconic little fixer-upper 🫶

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database for which to print the SQL. Defaults to default.

🥞 squashmigrations 🥞

django-admin squashmigrations app_label [start_migration_name]
migration_name

Squashes the migrations for app_label up to and including migration_name down into fewer migrations, if possible. The resulting squashed migrations can live alongside the unsquashed ones safely. For more info, please read Squashing migrations (#migration-squashing).

When start_migration_name is given, Django will only include migrations starting from and including this migration. This helps to mitigate the squashing limitation of RunPython (#django.db.migrations.operations.RunPython) and django.db.migrations.operations.RunSQL (#django.db.migrations.operations.RunSQL) migration operations.

  • --no-optimize — Disables the optimizer when generating a squashed migration. By default, Django will try to optimize the operations in your migrations to reduce the size of the resulting file. Use this option if this process is failing or creating incorrect migrations — though please also file a Django bug report about the behavior, since optimization is meant to be safe. 🙈
  • --noinput, --no-input — Suppresses all user prompts.
  • --squashed-name SQUASHED_NAME — Sets the name of the squashed migration. When omitted, the name is based on the first and last migration, with _squashed_ in between.
  • --no-header — Generate squashed migration file without Django version and timestamp header.

🌱 startapp 🌱

django-admin startapp name [directory]

Creates a Django app directory structure for the given app name in the current directory or in the given destination.

By default, the new directory (https://github.com/django/django/blob/main/django/conf/app_template) contains a models.py file and other app template files. If you only give the app name, the app directory gets created in the current working directory.

If you provide the optional destination, Django will use that name instead. If the directory with the given name doesn't exist, it will be created. You can use . to denote the current working directory. ✨

Automatic creation of the destination directory was added. 🎉

For example:

django-admin startapp myapp /Users/jezdez/Code/myapp
  • --template TEMPLATE — Provides the path to a directory with a custom app template file, or a path to an uncompressed archive (.tar) or a compressed archive (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .tar.lzma, .tgz, .tbz2, .txz, .tlz, .zip) containing the app template files.

For example, this would look for an app template in the given directory when creating the myapp app:

django-admin startapp --template=/Users/jezdez/Code/my_app_template myapp

Django will also accept URLs (http, https, ftp) to compressed archives with the app template files, downloading and extracting them on the fly.

For example, taking advantage of GitHub's feature to expose repositories as zip files, you can use a URL like:

django-admin startapp --template=https://github.com/githubuser/django-app-template/archive/main.zip myapp
Warning: Templates provided via --template are used as is. Malicious or poorly constructed templates may introduce security weaknesses or unintended behavior. Compressed archives may also consume excessive resources during extraction, potentially causing crashes or hangs. 😱 Contents of templates should be carefully inspected before use. Bestie, please actually look at them. 🙏
  • --extension EXTENSIONS, -e EXTENSIONS — Specifies which file extensions in the app template should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to py.
  • --name FILES, -n FILES — Specifies which files in the app template (in addition to those matching --extension) should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to an empty list.
  • --exclude DIRECTORIES, -x DIRECTORIES — Specifies which directories in the app template should be excluded, in addition to .git and __pycache__. If this option is not provided, directories named __pycache__ or starting with . will be excluded.

The template context (see Context, #django.template.Context) used for all matching files is:

  • Any option passed to the startapp command (among the command's supported options)
  • app_name — the app name as passed to the command
  • app_directory — the full path of the newly created app
  • camel_case_app_name — the app name in camel case format
  • docs_version — the version of the documentation: 'dev' or '1.x'
  • django_version — the version of Django, e.g. '2.0.3'
Warning: When the app template files are rendered with the Django template engine (by default all *.py files), Django will also replace all stray template variables contained. For example, if one of the Python files contains a docstring explaining a particular feature related to template rendering, it might result in an incorrect example. 💀 To work around this problem, you can use the templatetag (#std-templatetag-templatetag) template tag to "escape" the various parts of the template syntax.

oh and ALSO, bestie, here's the ✨gag✨: to let Python template files hold Django template language syntax without packaging systems trying to byte-compile invalid *.py files, any template file ending in .py-tpl gets renamed to .py. 🎀

Warning: The contents of custom app (or project) templates should always be audited before use: Such templates define code that will become part of your project, and this means that such code will be trusted as much as any app you install, or code you write yourself. Further, even rendering the templates is, effectively, executing code that was provided as input to the management command. The Django template language may provide wide access into the system, so make sure any custom template you use is worthy of your trust. 😭

✨ startproject ✨

django-admin startproject name [directory]

Creates a Django project directory structure for the given project name in the current directory or the given destination. so simple, so powerful 💖

By default, the new directory (you know the one, the project_template one over at https://github.com/django/django/blob/main/django/conf/project_template) contains manage.py and a project package (containing a settings.py and other files). 🫶

If only the project name is given, both the project directory and the project package will be named <projectname> and the project directory will be created in the current working directory. 📁

If the optional destination is provided, Django will use that name as the project directory, and create manage.py and the project package within it. If the directory with the given name doesn't exist, it will be created. Use '.' to denote the current working directory. iykyk ✨

Automatic creation of the destination directory was added. 🎀

For example:

django-admin startproject myproject /Users/jezdez/Code/myproject_repo
  • --template TEMPLATE — Specifies a directory, file path, or URL of a custom project template. See the startapp --template documentation for examples and usage. The same security considerations described for startapp templates apply here: malicious or poorly constructed templates may introduce weaknesses or consume excessive resources, and templates should be carefully inspected before use. do NOT skip the vibes check on random templates 💀
  • --extension EXTENSIONS, -e EXTENSIONS — Specifies which file extensions in the project template should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to py.
  • --name FILES, -n FILES — Specifies which files in the project template (in addition to those matching --extension) should be rendered with the template engine. Defaults to an empty list.
  • --exclude DIRECTORIES, -x DIRECTORIES — Specifies which directories in the project template should be excluded, in addition to .git and __pycache__. If this option is not provided, directories named __pycache__ or starting with . will be excluded.

The template context (see Context) used is: 🌸

  • Any option passed to the startproject command (among the command's supported options)
  • project_name — the project name as passed to the command
  • project_directory — the full path of the newly created project
  • secret_key — a random key for the SECRET_KEY setting
  • docs_version — the version of the documentation: 'dev' or '1.x'
  • django_version — the version of Django, e.g. '2.0.3'

Please also see the rendering warning and trusted code warning as mentioned for startapp. 👀

🧪 test 🧪

django-admin test [test_label [test_label ...]]

Runs tests for all installed apps. See Testing in Django for more information. the moment of truth fr fr ✅

  • --failfast — Stops running tests and reports the failure immediately after a test fails. no time for drama, we bail the second something breaks
  • --testrunner TESTRUNNER — Controls the test runner class that is used to execute tests. This value overrides the value provided by the TEST_RUNNER setting.
  • --noinput, --no-input — Suppresses all user prompts. A typical prompt is a warning about deleting an existing test database. 🙈

🦋 Test runner options 🦋

The test command receives options on behalf of the specified --testrunner. These are the options of the default test runner: DiscoverRunner. 👑

  • --keepdb — Preserves the test database between test runs. This has the advantage of skipping both the create and destroy actions which can greatly decrease the time to run tests, especially those in a large test suite. If the test database does not exist, it will be created on the first run and then preserved for each subsequent run. Unless the TEST_MIGRATE test setting is False, any unapplied migrations will also be applied to the test database before running the test suite. 🔥
  • --shuffle [SEED] — Randomizes the order of tests before running them. This can help detect tests that aren't properly isolated. The test order generated by this option is a deterministic function of the integer seed given. When no seed is passed, a seed is chosen randomly and printed to the console. To repeat a particular test order, pass a seed. The test orders generated by this option preserve Django's guarantees on test order. They also keep tests grouped by test case class. chaos, but make it reproducible 🎲

The shuffled orderings also have a special consistency property useful when narrowing down isolation issues. Namely, for a given seed and when running a subset of tests, the new order will be the original shuffling restricted to the smaller set. Similarly, when adding tests while keeping the seed the same, the order of the original tests will be the same in the new order. ✨

  • --reverse, -r — Sorts test cases in the opposite execution order. This may help in debugging the side effects of tests that aren't properly isolated. Grouping by test class is preserved when using this option. This can be used in conjunction with --shuffle to reverse the order for a particular seed.
  • --debug-mode — Sets the DEBUG setting to True prior to running tests. This may help troubleshoot test failures. 🕵️
  • --debug-sql, -d — Enables SQL logging for failing tests. If --verbosity is 2, then queries in passing tests are also output.
  • --parallel [N] DJANGO_TEST_PROCESSES — Runs tests in separate parallel processes. Since modern processors have multiple cores, this allows running tests significantly faster. ⚡

Using --parallel without a value, or with the value auto, runs one test process per core according to multiprocessing.cpu_count() (yes, the Python docs one: https://docs.python.org/3/library/multiprocessing.html#multiprocessing.cpu_count). You can override this by passing the desired number of processes, e.g. --parallel 4, or by setting the DJANGO_TEST_PROCESSES environment variable.

Django distributes test cases — unittest.TestCase subclasses (from https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html#unittest.TestCase) — to subprocesses. If there are fewer test case classes than configured processes, Django will reduce the number of processes accordingly.

Each process gets its own database. You must ensure that different test case classes don't access the same resources. For instance, test case classes that touch the filesystem should create a temporary directory for their own use. 📂

Note: If you have test classes that cannot be run in parallel, you can use SerializeMixin to run them sequentially. See Enforce running test classes sequentially.

This option requires the third-party tblib package to display tracebacks correctly:

$ python -m pip install tblib

This feature isn't available on Windows. It doesn't work with the Oracle database backend either. 😭

If you want to use pdb (that's https://docs.python.org/3/library/pdb.html#module-pdb) while debugging tests, you must disable parallel execution (--parallel=1). You'll see something like bdb.BdbQuit if you don't. 💀

Warning: When test parallelization is enabled and a test fails, Django may be unable to display the exception traceback. This can make debugging difficult. If you encounter this problem, run the affected test without parallelization to see the traceback of the failure. This is a known limitation. It arises from the need to serialize objects in order to exchange them between processes. See What can be pickled and unpickled? (https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html#pickle-picklable) for details.
  • --tag TAGS — Runs only tests marked with the specified tags. May be specified multiple times and combined with test --exclude-tag. 🏷️

Tests that fail to load are always considered matching.

  • --exclude-tag EXCLUDE_TAGS — Excludes tests marked with the specified tags. May be specified multiple times and combined with test --tag.
  • -k TEST_NAME_PATTERNS — Runs test methods and classes matching test name patterns, in the same way as unittest's -k option (https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html#cmdoption-unittest-k). Can be specified multiple times. 🔍
  • --pdb — Spawns a pdb debugger at each test error or failure. If you have it installed, ipdb is used instead. 🐛
  • --buffer, -b — Discards output (stdout and stderr) for passing tests, in the same way as unittest's --buffer option (https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html#cmdoption-unittest-b).
  • --no-faulthandler — Django automatically calls faulthandler.enable() (https://docs.python.org/3/library/faulthandler.html#faulthandler.enable) when starting the tests, which allows it to print a traceback if the interpreter crashes. Pass --no-faulthandler to disable this behavior.
  • --timing — Outputs timings, including database setup and total run time. ⏱️
  • --durations N — Shows the N slowest test cases (N=0 for all).

🌈 testserver 🌈

django-admin testserver [fixture [fixture ...]]

Runs a Django development server (as in runserver) using data from the given fixture(s). fake data, real server, iconic behavior 💅

For example, this command:

django-admin testserver mydata.json

...would perform the following steps:

  1. Create a test database, as described in The test database.
  2. Populate the test database with fixture data from the given fixtures. (For more on fixtures, see the documentation for loaddata above.)
  3. Runs the Django development server (as in runserver), pointed at this newly created test database instead of your production database. 🔥

This is useful in a number of ways:

  • When you're writing unit tests of how your views act with certain fixture data, you can use testserver to interact with the views in a web browser, manually. 🦋
  • Okay so picture this: you're building your Django app and you've got a "pristine" copy of a database you wanna poke at. Dump that database into a fixture (use the dumpdata command, explained above ⬆️), then run testserver to serve your web app on top of that data. The whole point? You get to absolutely trash your data however you want, knowing every single change you make is only landing on a test database. Zero consequences, all vibes. 💅

Heads up though: this server does not auto-detect changes to your Python source code the way runserver does. It does, however, detect changes to templates. 🎀

  • --addrport ADDRPORT — Wanna pick a different port, or an IP address and port? Say less. Default is 127.0.0.1:8000. This value follows exactly the same format and does exactly the same job as the argument to the runserver command.

Examples, bestie:

To run the test server on port 7000 with fixture1 and fixture2:

django-admin testserver --addrport 7000 fixture1 fixture2
django-admin testserver fixture1 fixture2 --addrport 7000

(Yes those two are literally equivalent. We're showing you both just to prove it doesn't matter whether the options come before or after the fixture arguments. Order? Not the main character here. 😌)

To run on 1.2.3.4:7000 with a test fixture:

django-admin testserver --addrport 1.2.3.4:7000 test
  • --noinput, --no-input — Suppresses all user prompts. A classic prompt you'd be silencing is the warning about deleting an existing test database. 👀

🌈 COMMANDS PROVIDED BY APPLICATIONS 🌈

Some commands are only available when the django.contrib application that implements them has been enabled in INSTALLED_APPS. This section groups them by their application, because we're organized like that. 💖

💜 django.contrib.auth 💜

changepassword

django-admin changepassword [<username>]

This command is only available if Django's authentication system (django.contrib.auth) is installed. No auth, no command, no exceptions.

It lets you change a user's password. It prompts you to enter a new password twice for the given user. If the two entries are identical, boom — that immediately becomes the new password. ✨ If you don't supply a user, the command will try to change the password whose username matches the current user.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database to query for the user. Defaults to default.

Example usage, iconic behavior only:

django-admin changepassword ringo

createsuperuser

django-admin createsuperuser

DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD

This command is only available if Django's authentication system (django.contrib.auth) is installed.

It creates a superuser account — aka a user who has all the permissions. Absolutely main character energy. 👑 Super useful if you need to create an initial superuser account, or if you need to programmatically generate superuser accounts for your site(s).

When you run it interactively, it'll prompt you for a password for the new superuser account. When you run it non-interactively, you can hand it a password by setting the DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD environment variable. If you do neither, then no password will be set, and the superuser account will not be able to log in until a password has been manually set for it. So don't forget that part. 😭

In non-interactive mode, the USERNAME_FIELD and required fields (listed in REQUIRED_FIELDS) fall back to DJANGO_SUPERUSER_<uppercase_field_name> environment variables, unless they're overridden by a command line argument. For example, to provide an email field, you can use the DJANGO_SUPERUSER_EMAIL environment variable. 🦋

  • --noinput, --no-input — Suppresses all user prompts. If a suppressed prompt can't be resolved automatically, the command will exit with error code 1.
  • --username USERNAME
  • --email EMAIL

The username and email address for the new account can be supplied using the --username and --email arguments on the command line. If either of those isn't supplied, createsuperuser will prompt for it when running interactively.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database into which the superuser object will be saved.

You can also subclass the management command and override get_input_data() if you wanna customize data input and validation. Go consult the source code for details on the existing implementation and the method's parameters. For example, it could be useful if you have a ForeignKey in REQUIRED_FIELDS and want to allow creating an instance instead of entering the primary key of an existing instance. 🫶

🌸 django.contrib.contenttypes 🌸

remove_stale_contenttypes

django-admin remove_stale_contenttypes

This command is only available if Django's contenttypes app (django.contrib.contenttypes) is installed.

It deletes stale content types (from deleted models) in your database. And btw — any objects that depend on the deleted content types will also be deleted. 😳 A list of deleted objects will be displayed before you confirm it's okay to proceed with the deletion. So you get a lil preview before the chaos.

  • --database DATABASE — Specifies the database to use. Defaults to default.
  • --include-stale-apps — Deletes stale content types including ones from previously installed apps that have been removed from INSTALLED_APPS. Defaults to False.

🧚 django.contrib.gis 🧚

ogrinspect

This command is only available if GeoDjango (django.contrib.gis) is installed.

Please refer to its description in the GeoDjango documentation. 📖

⭐ django.contrib.sessions ⭐

clearsessions

django-admin clearsessions

Can be run as a cron job or directly to clean out expired sessions. Simple, effective, lowkey iconic. ✨

🎀 django.contrib.staticfiles 🎀

collectstatic

This command is only available if the static files application (django.contrib.staticfiles) is installed.

Please refer to its description in the staticfiles documentation.

findstatic

This command is only available if the static files application (django.contrib.staticfiles) is installed.

Please refer to its description in the staticfiles documentation.

💅 DEFAULT OPTIONS 💅

Some commands are out here allowing their own custom options, sure. But every command allows for the following options by default. Universal. Non-negotiable. The baseline. 💖

  • --pythonpath PYTHONPATH — Adds the given filesystem path to the Python sys.path module attribute. If this isn't provided, django-admin will use the PYTHONPATH environment variable instead.

This option is unnecessary in manage.py, because it takes care of setting the Python path for you. 😌

Example usage:

django-admin migrate --pythonpath='/home/djangoprojects/myproject'
  • --settings SETTINGS — Specifies the settings module to use. The settings module should be in Python package syntax, e.g. mysite.settings. If this isn't provided, django-admin will use the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable.

This option is unnecessary in manage.py, because it uses settings.py from the current project by default.

Example usage:

django-admin migrate --settings=mysite.settings
  • --traceback — Displays a full stack trace when a CommandError is raised. By default, django-admin will show an error message when a CommandError occurs, and a full stack trace for any other exception.

This option is ignored by runserver.

Example usage:

django-admin migrate --traceback
  • --verbosity {0,1,2,3}, -v {0,1,2,3} — Specifies the amount of notification and debug information that a command should print to the console.
    • 0 means no output.
    • 1 means normal output (default).
    • 2 means verbose output.
    • 3 means very verbose output.

This option is ignored by runserver.

Example usage:

django-admin migrate --verbosity 2
  • --no-color — Disables colorized command output. Some commands format their output to be colorized. For example, errors will be printed to the console in red and SQL statements will be syntax highlighted. 🌈

Example usage:

django-admin runserver --no-color
  • --force-color — Forces colorization of the command output if it would otherwise be disabled as discussed in Syntax coloring. For example, you may want to pipe colored output to another command. 🎨
  • --skip-checks — Skips running system checks prior to running the command. This option is only available if the requires_system_checks command attribute is not an empty list or tuple.

Example usage:

django-admin migrate --skip-checks

💅 EXTRA NICETIES 💅

okay bestie, this is the part where the page just keeps giving. sit down, hydrate, we're going over the little sparkly extras ✨

🌈 Syntax coloring

DJANGO_COLORS

so the django-admin / manage.py commands will give you pretty color-coded output if your terminal supports ANSI-colored output. periodt. but — and this is the important bit — it will not use the color codes if you're piping the command's output to another program, unless you use the --force-color option. so no surprise escape-sequence soup in your files 🙈

🪟 Windows support

On Windows 10, the Windows Terminal application, VS Code, and PowerShell (where virtual terminal processing is enabled) allow colored output, and are supported by default. iconic behavior tbh 👑

Under Windows, the legacy cmd.exe native console doesn't support ANSI escape sequences, so by default there is no color output. in this case, either of two third-party libraries is needed:

  • Install colorama, a Python package that translates ANSI color codes into Windows API calls. Django commands will detect its presence and will make use of its services to color output just like on Unix-based platforms. colorama can be installed via pip:
...\> py -m pip install "colorama >= 0.4.6"
  • Install ANSICON, a third-party tool that allows cmd.exe to process ANSI color codes. Django commands will detect its presence and will make use of its services to color output just like on Unix-based platforms.

Other modern terminal environments on Windows, that support terminal colors, but which are not automatically detected as supported by Django, may "fake" the installation of ANSICON by setting the appropriate environmental variable, ANSICON="on". sneaky but valid 💀

🎨 Custom colors

the colors used for syntax highlighting can be customized. Django ships with three color palettes:

  • dark, suited to terminals that show white text on a black background. this is the default palette.
  • light, suited to terminals that show black text on a white background.
  • nocolor, which disables syntax highlighting.

You select a palette by setting a DJANGO_COLORS environment variable to specify the palette you want to use. For example, to specify the light palette under a Unix or OS/X BASH shell, you would run the following at a command prompt:

export DJANGO_COLORS="light"

You can also customize the colors that are used. Django specifies a number of roles in which color is used:

  • error — A major error.
  • notice — A minor error.
  • success — A success.
  • warning — A warning.
  • sql_field — The name of a model field in SQL.
  • sql_coltype — The type of a model field in SQL.
  • sql_keyword — An SQL keyword.
  • sql_table — The name of a model in SQL.
  • http_info — A 1XX HTTP Informational server response.
  • http_success — A 2XX HTTP Success server response.
  • http_not_modified — A 304 HTTP Not Modified server response.
  • http_redirect — A 3XX HTTP Redirect server response other than 304.
  • http_not_found — A 404 HTTP Not Found server response.
  • http_bad_request — A 4XX HTTP Bad Request server response other than 404.
  • http_server_error — A 5XX HTTP Server Error response.
  • migrate_heading — A heading in a migrations management command.
  • migrate_label — A migration name.

Each of these roles can be assigned a specific foreground and background color, from the following list:

  • black
  • red
  • green
  • yellow
  • blue
  • magenta
  • cyan
  • white

Each of these colors can then be modified by using the following display options:

  • bold
  • underscore
  • blink
  • reverse
  • conceal

A color specification follows one of the following patterns:

  • role=fg
  • role=fg/bg
  • role=fg,option,option
  • role=fg/bg,option,option

where role is the name of a valid color role, fg is the foreground color, bg is the background color and each option is one of the color modifying options. Multiple color specifications are then separated by a semicolon. For example:

export DJANGO_COLORS="error=yellow/blue,blink;notice=magenta"

would specify that errors be displayed using blinking yellow on blue, and notices displayed using magenta. All other color roles would be left uncolored.

Colors can also be specified by extending a base palette. If you put a palette name in a color specification, all the colors implied by that palette will be loaded. So:

export DJANGO_COLORS="light;error=yellow/blue,blink;notice=magenta"

would specify the use of all the colors in the light color palette, except for the colors for errors and notices which would be overridden as specified. chef's kiss, no notes 🧚

🐚 Bash completion

If you use the Bash shell, consider installing the Django bash completion script, which lives in extras/django_bash_completion in the Django source distribution. It enables tab-completion of django-admin and manage.py commands, so you can, for instance...

  • Type django-admin.
  • Press [TAB] to see all available options.
  • Type sql, then [TAB], to see all available options whose names start with sql.

the way this saves your wrists, fr fr. See "How to create custom django-admin commands" for how to add customized actions.

🖤 Black formatting

The Python files created by startproject, startapp, optimizemigration, makemigrations, and squashmigrations are formatted using the black command if it is present on your PATH.

If you have black globally installed, but do not wish it used for the current project, you can set the PATH explicitly:

PATH=path/to/venv/bin django-admin makemigrations

For commands using stdout you can pipe the output to black if needed:

django-admin inspectdb | black -

🐍 calling commands from your code: call_command()

django.core.management.call_command(name, *args, **options)

To call a management command from code use call_command().

  • name — the name of the command to call or a command object. Passing the name is preferred unless the object is required for testing.
  • *args — a list of arguments accepted by the command. Arguments are passed to the argument parser, so you can use the same style as you would on the command line. For example, call_command('flush', '--verbosity=0').
  • **options — named options accepted on the command-line. Options are passed to the command without triggering the argument parser, which means you'll need to pass the correct type. For example, call_command('flush', verbosity=0) (zero must be an integer rather than a string).

Examples:

from django.core import management
from django.core.management.commands import loaddata

management.call_command("flush", verbosity=0, interactive=False)
management.call_command("loaddata", "test_data", verbosity=0)
management.call_command(loaddata.Command(), "test_data", verbosity=0)

Note that command options that take no arguments are passed as keywords with True or False, as you can see with the interactive option above.

Named arguments can be passed by using either one of the following syntaxes:

# Similar to the command line
management.call_command("dumpdata", "--natural-foreign")

# Named argument similar to the command line minus the initial dashes and
# with internal dashes replaced by underscores
management.call_command("dumpdata", natural_foreign=True)

# `use_natural_foreign_keys` is the option destination variable
management.call_command("dumpdata", use_natural_foreign_keys=True)

Some command options have different names when using call_command() instead of django-admin or manage.py. For example, django-admin createsuperuser --no-input translates to call_command('createsuperuser', interactive=False). To find what keyword argument name to use for call_command(), check the command's source code for the dest argument passed to parser.add_argument(). iykyk, go read the source, it's right there 💜

Command options which take multiple options are passed a list:

management.call_command("dumpdata", exclude=["contenttypes", "auth"])

The return value of the call_command() function is the same as the return value of the handle() method of the command.

🌊 OUTPUT REDIRECTION 🌊

Note that you can redirect standard output and error streams as all commands support the stdout and stderr options. For example, you could write:

with open("/path/to/command_output", "w") as f:
    management.call_command("dumpdata", stdout=f)

catch your output, queen 🫶

👑 Author

Django Software Foundation

Django Software Foundation and contributors

and that's a wrap bestie, the whole page, done, slay 💖 this was DJANGO-ADMIN(1), version 6.1, dated August 05, 2026 — go forth and django-admin responsibly, mwah 🎀✨

📦 where this page comes from