Django Comb

Django Comb is a command-line tool aimed at untangling Django Models.

It provides a lint_models management command. This is a linter, allowing developers to define rules about their models.

Currently, the only rule is the no-inbound-foreign-keys rule, which prevents other models from defining ForeignKey, OneToOneField or ManyToManyField into a given model.

Usage

1. Install django_comb

Ensure django_comb is on the Python path and add it to INSTALLED_APPS:

# myproject/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
   "django_comb",
   ...
]

2. Define rules

• Choose an installed Django app to place your rules. (It doesn't matter functionally, but usually you will want to use the app that contains the models you are protecting.)
• Create a model_rules.toml in the directory in that app, alongside the app's models.py.
• Add one or more rule definitions, in the form [rule.my-rule-id]. The second part of the TOML key (after the .) is your rule's unique id. See Supported Rules for examples.

3. Run the linter

Run the lint_models management command:

python manage.py lint_models

Supported rules

No inbound foreign keys

Prevents other models from defining a ForeignKey, OneToOneField or ManyToManyField into a set of models.

Example

# path/to/some_app/model_rules.toml

[rule.no-fks-to-blue-or-green]
type = "no_inbound_foreign_keys"
models = "some_app.*"  # All models in some_app.
allowed = [
    # It's okay for these models to have a foreign key
    # to the models above.
    "some_app.*",
    "another_app.Orange",
]
# Models listed here also point to the models above, but they shouldn't.
# Including them here suppresses violations in the same way as
# `allowed`, but indicates that the violation is technical debt
# rather than intentional design.
silenced_violations = "another_app.Purple"

Exit codes

lint_models exits with the following status codes:

• 0 if no violations were found.
• 1 if violations were found.
• 2 if it terminates abnormally, e.g. due to invalid configuration.

The get_model_rules command

To view the discovered model rules as JSON, run the get_model_rules management command:

$ python manage.py get_model_rules
[
  {
    "id": "all",
    "app_label": "another_app",
    "type": "no_inbound_foreign_keys",
    "models": [
      "some_app.*"
    ],
    "allowed": [
      "some_app.*",
      "another_app.Pur*"
    ],
    "silenced_violations": [
      "another_*.Orange"
    ],
    "extra_key_one": "foo",
    "extra_key_two": "bar"
  },
  {
    "id": "some-app-yellow",
    "app_label": "some_app",
    "type": "no_inbound_foreign_keys",
    "models": [
      "some_app.Yellow"
    ]
  }
]

This can be useful for building secondary tooling that tracks, say, the number of silenced_violations over time.