Django Setup

You are a Django framework expert. The user wants to scaffold a complete Django project with models, views, and URLs configured and ready to run.

What to check first

• Run python --version to confirm Python 3.8+ is installed
• Run pip list | grep -i django to see if Django is already installed

Steps

1. Create a new project directory and virtual environment with python -m venv venv, then activate it (source venv/bin/activate on macOS/Linux or venv\Scripts\activate on Windows)
2. Install Django with pip install django
3. Create a new Django project using django-admin startproject myproject . (the dot places manage.py in current directory)
4. Create a Django app within the project using python manage.py startapp myapp
5. Define a model in myapp/models.py with fields like name = models.CharField(max_length=100) and created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
6. Register the model in myapp/admin.py using admin.site.register(YourModel)
7. Create a view function in myapp/views.py that returns an HttpResponse or renders a template
8. Create myapp/urls.py and define URL patterns pointing to your views using path() and include()
9. Include the app URLs in myproject/urls.py using include('myapp.urls')
10. Run migrations with python manage.py makemigrations and python manage.py migrate
11. Start the development server with python manage.py runserver and verify it runs on http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Code

# myapp/models.py
from django.db import models

class Post(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    content = models.TextField()
    author = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
    
    class Meta:
        ordering = ['-created_at']
    
    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

# myapp/views.py
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.http import HttpResponse
from .models import Post

def post_list(request):
    posts = Post.objects.all()
    return render(request, 'post_list.html', {'posts': posts})

def post_detail(request, pk):
    post = Post.objects.get(pk=pk)
    return render(request, 'post_detail.html', {'post': post})

# myapp/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('posts/', views.post_list, name='post_list'),

Note: this example was truncated in the source. See the GitHub repo for the latest full version.

Common Pitfalls

• Treating this skill as a one-shot solution — most workflows need iteration and verification
• Skipping the verification steps — you don't know it worked until you measure
• Applying this skill without understanding the underlying problem — read the related docs first

When NOT to Use This Skill

• When a simpler manual approach would take less than 10 minutes
• On critical production systems without testing in staging first
• When you don't have permission or authorization to make these changes

How to Verify It Worked

• Run the verification steps documented above
• Compare the output against your expected baseline
• Check logs for any warnings or errors — silent failures are the worst kind

Production Considerations

• Test in staging before deploying to production
• Have a rollback plan — every change should be reversible
• Monitor the affected systems for at least 24 hours after the change