🚀 Django Kickstart

Scaffold production-ready Django projects in seconds.

Skip the boilerplate. Start building.

✨ Features

• Two project types: MVP (traditional Django with templates) or API (Django REST Framework)
• View style choice: Function-Based Views (FBV) or Class-Based Views (CBV)
• Database options: SQLite (dev) or PostgreSQL (production)
• Docker support: Optional --docker flag generates a production-ready Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml, and entrypoint.sh
• Auto virtual environment: Creates a venv and installs dependencies automatically
• Production-ready settings: Security hardened, environment variables via python-decouple
• Admin panel: Enabled and configured out of the box
• URL routing: Fully wired with app URLs included
• Example model: Item model with admin registration, tests, and views
• Beautiful starter templates: Modern CSS with responsive layout (MVP only)
• DRF browsable API: Auto-configured with pagination and permissions (API only)

📦 Installation

pip install django-kickstartx

🚀 Quick Start

Interactive mode (guided prompts)

django-kickstart create myproject

Flag mode (one-liner)

# MVP with function-based views + SQLite
django-kickstart create myproject --type mvp --views fbv --db sqlite

# REST API with class-based views + PostgreSQL
django-kickstart create myproject --type api --views cbv --db postgresql

# Any project with Docker support
django-kickstart create myproject --type api --views fbv --db postgresql --docker

After creating your project

A virtual environment is created automatically with all dependencies installed.

cd myproject
# Activate the virtual environment
# Windows:
venv\Scripts\activate
# macOS/Linux:
source venv/bin/activate

cp .env.example .env
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py runserver

Tip: Use --no-venv to skip automatic virtual environment creation.

With Docker

If you used --docker, skip the venv entirely and use Compose:

cd myproject
cp .env.example .env
docker-compose up --build

Once the containers are running:

docker-compose exec web python manage.py createsuperuser

Note: For PostgreSQL projects, the web container waits for the database to pass its health check before running migrations automatically.

🔧 Options

📁 Generated Structure

MVP Project

myproject/
├── venv/                       # Auto-created virtual environment
├── manage.py
├── requirements.txt
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── myproject/
│   ├── settings.py         # Security, DB, static/media config
│   ├── urls.py             # Admin + core app wired
│   ├── wsgi.py
│   └── asgi.py
├── core/
│   ├── admin.py            # Item model registered
│   ├── models.py           # Example Item model
│   ├── views.py            # FBV or CBV
│   ├── urls.py
│   ├── forms.py            # ModelForm
│   ├── tests.py
│   └── templates/core/
│       ├── base.html
│       ├── home.html
│       └── about.html
└── static/css/style.css

API (DRF) Project

myproject/
├── venv/                       # Auto-created virtual environment
├── manage.py
├── requirements.txt
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── myproject/
│   ├── settings.py         # DRF + CORS config included
│   ├── urls.py             # Admin + /api/ router
│   ├── wsgi.py
│   └── asgi.py
└── core/
    ├── admin.py
    ├── models.py
    ├── serializers.py       # DRF ModelSerializer
    ├── views.py             # @api_view or ModelViewSet
    ├── urls.py              # DRF Router or explicit paths
    └── tests.py

With --docker (additional files)

myproject/
├── Dockerfile              # python:3.12-slim-bookworm, no-cache pip install
├── docker-compose.yml      # web service (+ db service for PostgreSQL)
├── .dockerignore
└── entrypoint.sh           # PostgreSQL only — waits for DB, then migrates

🤔 What's Included?

Settings Highlights

• SECRET_KEY loaded from .env
• DEBUG and ALLOWED_HOSTS from environment
• Pre-configured password validators
• Static & media file configuration
• Production security settings (commented, ready to uncomment)
• Login/logout redirect URLs

MVP Extras

• Django HTML templates with {% block %} structure
• Clean starter CSS with responsive grid
• ModelForm with widget customization

API Extras

• Django REST Framework with pagination
• django-cors-headers configured
• django-filter included in requirements
• DRF browsable API at /api/

📄 License

MIT © 2026

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/my-feature
3. Commit: git commit -m 'Add my feature'
4. Push: git push origin feature/my-feature
5. Open a Pull Request

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