Django Headless

With Django Headless you quickly create a REST API for your models, making it easy to turn Django into a powerful headless CMS.

✨ Features

• 🎯 Easy configuration: Add @expose decorator to any model and get instant REST endpoints
• 🤝 Plays nice: Seamlessly integrates with existing Django applications
• 💈 Supports singletons: Special handling for singleton models (settings, configurations, etc.)
• 🔍 Flexible filtering: Optional filtering backend based on Django ORM lookups
• 🛡️ Secure: Inherits Django's security features and permissions system

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

☝️ Django Headless depends on Django and Django Rest Framework.

pip install django-headless

Add to Django Settings

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'rest_framework',
    'headless',  # Add this
    # ... your apps
]

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    # Optional: add the lookup filter backend
    "DEFAULT_FILTER_BACKENDS": [
        "headless.rest.filters.LookupFilter",
    #...
    # Optional: add the secret key authentication class
    "DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES": [
        "headless.rest.authentication.SecretKeyAuthentication",
    #... other DRF config
}

Create Your First Headless Model

# apps/blog/models.py
from django.db import models
from headless import expose


@expose()
class BlogPost(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    content = models.TextField()
    published = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

Add URLs

# urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('api/', include('headless.urls')),
]

That's it! 🎉 Your model is now available via REST API at /api/blog.blogpost/

📖 Usage Examples

Basic Model Registration

# apps/blog/models.py
from django.db import models
from headless import expose


@expose()
class Article(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    content = models.TextField()
    author = models.ForeignKey("user.User", on_delete=models.CASCADE)

Generated endpoints:

• GET /api/blog.article/ - List all articles
• POST /api/blog.article/ - Create new article
• GET /api/blog.article/{id}/ - Retrieve specific article
• PUT /api/blog.article/{id}/ - Update article
• PATCH /api/blog.article/{id}/ - Partially update article
• DELETE /api/blog.article/{id}/ - Delete article

Singleton Models

Perfect for site settings, configurations, or any model that should have only one instance:

# apps/config/models.py
from django.db import models
from headless import expose


@expose(singleton=True)
class SiteConfiguration(models.Model):
    site_name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    maintenance_mode = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    contact_email = models.EmailField()
    
    class Meta:
        verbose_name = "Site Configuration"

Generated endpoints:

• GET /api/config.siteconfiguration/ - Get configuration
• PUT /api/config.siteconfiguration/ - Update configuration
• PATCH /api/config.siteconfiguration/ - Partial update

Advanced Filtering

Django Headless supports Django ORM lookups for powerful filtering. Add the LookupFilter backend to your default filter backends:

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    "DEFAULT_FILTER_BACKENDS": [
        "headless.rest.filters.LookupFilter",
    #... other DRF config
}

Filter examples:

# Basic filtering
GET /api/blog.blogpost/?published=true

# Field lookups
GET /api/blog.blogpost/?title__icontains=django
GET /api/blog.blogpost/?created_at__gte=2023-01-01
GET /api/blog.blogpost/?author__username=john

# Multiple filters
GET /api/blog.blogpost/?published=true&created_at__year=2023

Values are automatically cast based on the field type. Booleans can be represented as true, 1 or on (and false, 0 or off). Multi-value lookups can be comma-separated (e.g. id__in=1,2,3).

Field Expansion & Model Properties (optional)

By default, endpoints use a plain ModelSerializer. To enable ?expand= for related models and automatic exposure of model properties as read-only fields, point DEFAULT_SERIALIZER_CLASS at the FlexibleSerializer:

HEADLESS = {
    "DEFAULT_SERIALIZER_CLASS": "headless.rest.serializers.FlexibleSerializer",
}

# Return the related author inline
GET /api/blog.article/?expand=author

# Return the articles of a category inline
GET /api/blog.category/1/?expand=articles

Only relations to other exposed models are expandable.

🎛️ Configuration Options

The @expose decorator accepts the following configuration options:

Global Settings

# settings.py
HEADLESS =  {
    # True always shows the boot log, False never does.
    # The default (None) shows it automatically in server mode.
    "BOOT_LOG": None,
    "AUTH_SECRET_KEY": None,
    "AUTH_SECRET_KEY_HEADER": "X-Secret-Key",
    "DEFAULT_SERIALIZER_CLASS": "rest_framework.serializers.ModelSerializer",
    "FILTER_EXCLUSION_SYMBOL": "~",
    "FILTER_TRUE_VALUES": ["true", "1", "on"],
    "FILTER_FALSE_VALUES": ["false", "0", "off"],
    "FILTER_NULL_VALUES": ["null", "none", "empty"],
    "NON_FILTER_FIELDS": [
        "search",
        "limit",
        "page",
        "fields",
        "omit",
        "expand",
        "ordering"
    ],

}

🛠️ Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• Django 5.0+
• Django REST Framework 3.16+

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Here's how to get started:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests for your changes
5. Run the test suite (python manage.py test)
6. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
7. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
8. Open a Pull Request

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/dwarsbit/django-headless.git
cd django-headless

# Create virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
poetry install

# Run tests
poetry run test

# Run example project
cd example_project
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

📚 Documentation

For detailed documentation, visit djangoheadless.org

🐛 Issues & Support

• 🐛 Bug Reports: GitHub Issues
• 💬 Discussions: GitHub Discussions
• 📧 Email: leon@dwarsbit.nl

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built on the shoulders of Django and Django REST Framework
• Inspired by the headless CMS and Jamstack movement
• Thanks to all contributors and the Django community

🔗 Links

• PyPI Package
• Documentation
• GitHub Repository
• Changelog

Made in Europe 🇪🇺 with 💚 for Django