How to create a Django application with our quickstart repository#

The Django Divio quickstart repository is a template that gives you the fastest possible way of launching a new Django application on Divio.

It uses a completely standard Django project as created by the Django startproject management command.

The only additions are a few lines of glue code in settings.py to handle configuration using environment variables, plus some additional files to take care of the Docker set-up.

Clone the repository#

Run:

git clone git@github.com:divio/django-divio-quickstart.git

The application contains a module named quickstart, containing settings.py and other application-level configuration.

Renaming the quickstart application module (optional)#

If you’d like this to be named something else, now is the time to change the directory name, along with the references to the quickstart module wherever it appears, which is in:

  • Dockerfile

  • manage.py

  • asgi.py

  • settings.py

  • wsgi.py

Using MySQL or an alternative gateway server#

By default, the application uses Postgres and uWSGI, but MySQL and other gateway server options are available.

You’ll need to change a few lines of configuration to achieve this across a few files. See the notes for each:

Run the application locally#

This section assumes that you have Docker and the Divio CLI installed. You also need an account on Divio, and your account needs your SSH public key. See How to set up the Divio local development environment if required.

Build the Docker image#

Run:

docker-compose build

Run database migrations and create a superuser#

docker-compose run web python manage.py migrate

(Note that due to Docker behaviour, you may get an error the first time you run this - Docker can sometimes be too slow to start up the database in time. If this happens, simply run the command again.)

then:

docker-compose run web python manage.py createsuperuser

Launch the local server#

docker-compose up

Try accessing the site at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ (this will only work if a URL has been wired up to /).

The Django admin is available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin.

You now have a working, running application ready for further development. All the commands you might normally execute in development need to be run inside the Docker container - prefix them with docker-compose run web as in the examples above.

You can also use docker-compose run web bash to get a bash prompt for an interactive session inside the container.

Additional notes#

See Working with our recommended Django application configuration for further guidance.

Deployment#

Your application is ready for deployment on our cloud platform. The basic steps are:

  • create an application on the Divio Control Panel, with any required services

  • push your code/connect your Git repository

  • deploy one or more cloud environments

These steps are covered in more detail in Deploy your application to Divio.