django-admin-wiki

Collaborative staff wiki for Django Admin — edit in the browser, search with Postgres.

A reusable Django app for internal / back-office documentation next to django.contrib.admin. Not a public MediaWiki clone.

Features

• In-browser WYSIWYG editing (Summernote by default; switchable to textarea or a custom widget)
• Up to three-level navigation tree
• Full-text search (PostgreSQL FTS) with SQLite/MySQL substring fallback
• Revision history on every staff save
• Import from Markdown / MkDocs (import_mkdocs)
• Visible link from Django admin (Wiki pages changelist)
• Premium cloud mode: Hosted on our servers via API (no local wiki tables)

Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.10
• Django ≥ 4.2, < 6
• PostgreSQL recommended for production search (django.contrib.postgres) when STORAGE="local"

Install (5 minutes) — self-hosted (OSS)

pip install django-admin-wiki

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...,
    "django.contrib.postgres",  # if using Postgres FTS
    "django_summernote",        # required for default WYSIWYG editor
    "django_admin_wiki",
]

MEDIA_URL = "/media/"
MEDIA_ROOT = BASE_DIR / "media"

DJANGO_ADMIN_WIKI = {
    "STORAGE": "local",
    "SEARCH_BACKEND": "postgres",  # or "fallback"
    "SEARCH_CONFIG": "french",
    "EDITOR": "summernote",
    "ALLOW_MARKDOWN_READ": True,
    "DOCS_DIR": BASE_DIR / "wiki_docs",
    "MKDOCS_YML": BASE_DIR / "wiki_docs" / "mkdocs.yml",
    "URL_PREFIX": "wiki/",
    # Media: default local FS under DOCS_DIR/uploads via POST /wiki/media/upload/
    # "MEDIA_BACKEND": "django",  # use Django STORAGES (S3) instead
    # "MEDIA_MAX_UPLOAD_BYTES": 5 * 1024 * 1024,
}

Images in the editor are uploaded as files (no base64 in the database). Optional S3 for self-hosted:

pip install "django-admin-wiki[s3]"

# settings — host-owned bucket
INSTALLED_APPS += ["storages"]
STORAGES = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "storages.backends.s3.S3Storage",
        "OPTIONS": { ... },
    },
    "staticfiles": {"BACKEND": "django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage"},
}
DJANGO_ADMIN_WIKI = {..., "MEDIA_BACKEND": "django"}

# urls.py
path("summernote/", include("django_summernote.urls")),
path("wiki/", include("django_admin_wiki.urls")),

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py setup_wiki_groups   # creates "Wiki readers" + "Wiki editors"
python manage.py runserver

Then assign users to a group in Django Admin → Users (or Groups). is_staff alone does not grant wiki access.

Premium — cloud storage (no local wiki tables)

Subscribe at django-admin-wiki.enprod.fr. You receive write and read-only API keys from the account dashboard.

INSTALLED_APPS = [..., "django_summernote", "django_admin_wiki"]

# Prevent host migrate from creating wiki tables:
MIGRATION_MODULES = {"django_admin_wiki": None}

DJANGO_ADMIN_WIKI = {
    "STORAGE": "cloud",
    "CLOUD_API_URL": "https://django-admin-wiki.enprod.fr",
    "CLOUD_API_KEY": "daw_live_...",        # write key (editors)
    "CLOUD_API_KEY_READ": "daw_live_...",   # read-only key (readers)
    "EDITOR": "summernote",
}

path("summernote/", include("django_summernote.urls")),
path("wiki/", include("django_admin_wiki.urls")),
# Do NOT run migrations for django_admin_wiki

Isolation: every API request is scoped by the tenant bound to your API key. Tenant A cannot read Tenant B data.

Read vs write (client Django users)

Rights follow the logged-in user of your Django project (session cookie). Cloud SaaS accounts (email/password on the Premium site) only manage billing / API keys.

After migrate (or python manage.py setup_wiki_groups), two groups exist:

Assign users in Django Admin → Users. Superusers always have full wiki access.

Premium cloud mode — dual API keys

The host app holds two keys; the package picks one from request.user:

Create both keys from the account dashboard. The cloud API rejects writes on a read-only key.

See docs/PREMIUM.md.

Change the editor

DJANGO_ADMIN_WIKI = {"EDITOR": "textarea"}  # or "custom" + EDITOR_WIDGET

Import existing MkDocs docs (local mode)

python manage.py import_mkdocs
python manage.py refresh_wiki_search_vectors  # Postgres

Settings reference

Breaking choices (v1)

• Postgres recommended for local FTS; SQLite uses fallback search
• Summernote is the default editor
• Navigation is up to three levels (root → section → page)
• Cloud mode uses shared DB with tenant_id isolation (not DB-per-customer)

Example project

From the repository root:

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
cd example_project
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py setup_wiki_groups
python manage.py import_mkdocs
python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py runserver

See example_project/README.md.

License

See CHANGELOG.md for release notes.

BSD-3-Clause (OSS / local mode). Premium cloud hosting is a commercial subscription.