djadmin

A clean, modern UI for the Django admin — plus the things the admin never shipped: a dashboard with real numbers, a command palette, a date picker that fits on one row, change history beside the form, and two-factor authentication.

djadmin does not reimplement the admin. It layers a new interface on top of django.contrib.admin, so everything you already know keeps working: list_display, list_filter, search_fields, actions, inlines, permissions, autocomplete, history, popups, filter_horizontal, date hierarchies.

What you get

The shell

• Sidebar navigation grouped by app, with per-model icons, that collapses to an icon rail ([), or fully closes if you prefer (SIDEBAR_TOGGLE).
• Command palette (⌘K / Ctrl+K) that searches models and records.
• Light / dark / system theme, applied before first paint — no flash.
• Keyboard shortcuts (/ search, c add, f filters, ⌘S save, ? help).
• Messages as toasts, sticky save bar, mobile layout, RTL styles.
• Delete confirmations in a dialog — fetched from Django's own confirmation view, so permissions, protected relations and the deletion tree are still computed server-side (and it degrades to the full page without JS).

The dashboard

• Stat cards per model with a 14-day sparkline and a week-over-week delta.
• Admin activity chart for the last 30 days, server-rendered as inline SVG (no chart library, no CDN, works with JavaScript disabled).
• Recent-actions timeline.

The changelist

• Sticky-header tables, filter panel that remembers its state, removable filter chips, a floating bulk-action bar that appears on selection, badges, progress cells and identity cells for list_display.
• Date filters are shortcut chips (Today, Last 7 days, This month…) plus a real from/to range, instead of Django's five fixed links.

Forms

• One picker for dates and times, in place of Django's calendar popups: a DateField opens a month calendar, a DateTimeField opens that calendar next to a column of times. A datetime costs one row rather than the two rows, four shortcut controls and timezone paragraph the admin renders.
• An object's change history sits in a rail beside the form, filling the column a change form otherwise leaves empty.

Authentication

• TOTP two-factor authentication (RFC 6238, implemented on the standard library — works with 1Password, Google Authenticator, Aegis…).
• Single-use recovery codes, stored as keyed hashes.
• Replay protection, attempt throttling with lockout, expiring challenges.
• A per-account Security page, and an optional org-wide MFA requirement.
• Styled password change and password reset flows.

Install

pip install django-djadmin        # or: uv add django-djadmin
pip install "django-djadmin[mfa]" # adds QR codes on the MFA setup page

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "djadmin",                          # before the admin app: template overrides
    "djadmin.apps.DjadminAdminConfig",  # replaces "django.contrib.admin"
    ...
]

That is the whole installation. Run manage.py migrate (djadmin adds two small tables for MFA) and open /admin/.

Configure

Everything is optional:

DJADMIN = {
    "BRAND": "Northwind",
    "ACCENT": "#5b5bd6",
    "THEME": "auto",              # auto | light | dark
    "SIDEBAR": "expanded",        # expanded | mini | hidden (initial state)
    "SIDEBAR_TOGGLE": "mini",     # what the button collapses to: mini | hidden
    "NAV_ACCORDION": False,       # one app group open at a time
    "DENSITY": "comfortable",     # comfortable | compact
    "APP_ICONS": {"shop": "cart"},
    "MODEL_ICONS": {"shop.order": "cart"},
    "HIDE_APPS": [],
    "DASHBOARD_STATS": True,
    "DASHBOARD_ANALYTICS": True,
    "ANALYTICS_DAYS": 30,
    "COMMAND_PALETTE": True,
    "MFA": {
        "ENABLED": True,
        "REQUIRED": False,        # False | True | "staff" | "superusers"
        "ISSUER": "Northwind admin",
        "CHALLENGE_TIMEOUT": 300,
        "MAX_ATTEMPTS": 5,
        "LOCKOUT_SECONDS": 300,
        "RECOVERY_CODES": 10,
    },
}

Use it in admin.py

Plain admin.ModelAdmin renders fine. djadmin.ModelAdmin adds a few declarations the UI understands:

from django.contrib import admin
import djadmin
from djadmin import avatar, badge, money, progress

@admin.register(Product)
class ProductAdmin(djadmin.ModelAdmin):
    icon = "box"                  # sidebar / dashboard / palette icon
    dashboard_order = 10          # position among the stat cards
    help_text = "Everything you sell."
    list_display = ("name", "status_badge", "price_display", "stock_display")

    @admin.display(description="Status", ordering="status")
    def status_badge(self, obj):
        return badge(obj.get_status_display(), "success", dot=True)

    @admin.display(description="Price", ordering="price")
    def price_display(self, obj):
        return money(obj.price)

Cell helpers: badge(text, tone, dot=False), money(amount, currency), progress(value, total, tone, label), avatar(name, subtitle, image_url). Tones: neutral, success, warning, danger, info, accent.

djadmin.TabularInline and djadmin.StackedInline mirror the Django ones.

The demo

A complete shop admin — products, orders with inlines, customers, reviews, tags with filter_horizontal, custom filters, bulk actions and seeded data.

uv sync                                   # or: pip install -e ".[demo]"
uv run demo/manage.py migrate
uv run demo/manage.py seed_demo           # ~20 products, 45 customers, 240 orders
uv run demo/manage.py runserver

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/ and sign in with admin / admin.

Run the test suite (50 tests: every admin screen, the palette, the dashboard and the whole MFA flow):

uv run demo/manage.py test shop

Roadmap

docs/analytics-design.md is a full design for a website-analytics module — visitors, sessions, page views, sources, devices, countries, rollups, an opt-in tracking app and a dashboard. It was built and then parked; the design document stands on its own if it is picked up again.

The dashboard's own charts (per-model sparklines and the admin-activity graph) are unrelated to that and remain part of djadmin — see djadmin/charts.py.

Documentation

Full docs live in docs/ — installation, configuration, ModelAdmin, authentication and customising. Build them locally with uv run --with mkdocs-material mkdocs serve.

Compatibility

Every combination is exercised in CI. Django 4.2 is not supported: it reached end of life in April 2026 and lacks the collapsible-fieldset markup the forms rely on.

No runtime dependencies beyond Django; segno is optional and only used to draw the two-factor QR code.

License

MIT