inertia-django-full-of-juice 0.5.0

It's an opinionated Django adapter for the InertiaJS framework

Inertia.js Django Adapter

This adapter supports the Inertia.js v3 protocol, including once props, prepend / deep-merge variants, matchPropsOn, infinite scroll, fragment preservation across redirects, and the useHttp validation-response shape.

⚡ v3 protocol feature matrix

Everything this adapter speaks, with the recommended approach and the E2E test that proves it for each — every supported row links to a copy-pasteable example further down.

Status: ✅ built-in helper / setting · ⚙️ automatic (handled by InertiaMiddleware, zero code) · ⚠️ supported, but you wire it (by design — stays out of Django's way) · ❌ not built in. E2E proof: the Playwright spec that exercises the feature in a real browser. — = no dedicated spec (unit-tested, harness-level, or not built in).

Protocol feature	Status	Recommended approach	Docs	E2E proof
🧩 Page responses	✅	@inertia('Event/Index') decorator · or render() / InertiaResponse	Responses	home
🤝 Shared data (every component)	✅	share(request, user=…) in middleware	Shared Data	home
📦 Model / QuerySet serialization	✅	InertiaJsonEncoder (default) · InertiaMeta.fields	Prop Serialization	serialization
🪶 Optional props (partial-reload only)	✅	optional(lambda: …)	Optional Props	deferred-props · partial-reload
⏳ Deferred props	✅	defer(lambda: …)	Deferred Props	deferred-props
🧵 Deferred groups (parallel fetch)	✅	defer(…, group='stats')	Grouping requests	deferred-props · partial-reload
➕ Merge props (append)	✅	merge(…)	Merge Props	merge
🔝 Prepend props	✅	prepend(…)	Prepend Props	merge
🌳 Deep-merge props	✅	deep_merge(…)	Deep Merge Props	merge
🎯 Match-on (dedup merged lists)	✅	merge(…, match_on=['id'])	Match props on	merge
🗃️ Once props (client-cached)	✅	once(lambda: …, expires_in=…)	Once Props	once-props
♾️ Infinite scroll	✅	infinite_scroll(prop, request, …)	Infinite Scroll	infinite-scroll
🧷 Preserve fragment across redirects	✅ ⚙️	preserve_fragment(request) · auto when Location has #	Preserving fragments	redirects
↪️ External window.location visit	✅	location('https://…') → 409 + X-Inertia-Location	External Redirects	redirects
🔀 PRG → 303 · stale asset → 409 · fragment → 409	⚙️	automatic via InertiaMiddleware	Backend setup	method-conversion · asset-version · redirects
🏷️ Asset versioning (auto hard-reload)	✅	INERTIA_VERSION = string or callable	Asset versioning	asset-version
🔐 History encryption	✅	INERTIA_ENCRYPT_HISTORY · encrypt_history(request)	History Encryption	history
🧹 Clear history (e.g. on logout)	✅	clear_history(request)	History Encryption	history
🖥️ Server-side rendering (SSR)	✅	INERTIA_SSR_ENABLED = True	SSR	ssr-exclusion
🚫 Per-route SSR opt-out	✅	INERTIA_SSR_EXCLUDE = [r'^/admin/']	SSR	ssr-exclusion
🛡️ CSRF cookie/header alignment	⚠️	align names once (client setClient or Django settings)	CSRF	form-validation
🧾 Validation errors (Inertia visits)	✅	redirect_back(request, errors=form) · flash_errors(request, …)	Validation errors & error bags	form-validation
🧰 Error bags (multi-form scoping)	✅ ⚙️	automatic — flashed errors nest under X-Inertia-Error-Bag	Validation errors & error bags	error-bags
🌐 useHttp validation (422 shape)	✅	errors_response(errors, message=…)	useHttp responses	errors-response
🧪 Test assertions	✅	InertiaTestCase	Testing	— (harness)
⚡ Precognition (live form validation)	✅	@precognition(FormClass) decorator	Precognition	precognition
🗂️ sharedProps page field	✅ ⚙️	automatic from share() · INERTIA_EXPOSE_SHARED_PROP_KEYS	Shared Data	home
🛟 rescuedProps / defer(rescue=True)	✅	defer(…, rescue=True)	Rescuing failed deferred props	rescued-props
💬 flash page field	✅	flash(request, …) · INERTIA_FLASH_FROM_MESSAGES bridge	Flash data	flash

ℹ️ Every v3 surface is now built in; the only ⚠️ row left is CSRF alignment, a one-time naming decision that stays yours. The built-in validation-errors flow only fills props.errors when you didn't — shared or per-render errors props always win — so the hand-wired recipes that predate 0.5.0 keep working unchanged. The Django-messages recipe for toasts also still works as-is (flash-messages); the flash page field and its optional contrib.messages bridge are additive. The recipe's limits — multi-hop redirect chains, partial reloads, and history restore, each contrasted with flash surviving the identical flow — are pinned in messages-recipe.

Installation

Backend

Install the following python package via pip

pip install inertia-django-full-of-juice

Add the Inertia app to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
  # django apps,
  'inertia',
  # your project's apps,
]

Add the Inertia middleware to your MIDDLEWARE in settings.py

MIDDLEWARE = [
  # django middleware,
  'inertia.middleware.InertiaMiddleware',
  # your project's middleware,
]

Finally, create a layout which exposes {% block inertia %}{% endblock %} in the body and set the path to this layout as INERTIA_LAYOUT in your settings.py file. If you plan to enable SSR, your layout must also expose {% block inertia_head %}{% endblock %} in the <head> so the server-rendered head tags can be injected. See sample_project/templates/base.html for a complete example.

Now you're all set!

Frontend

The sample_project/ directory is a complete, working reference: a Django + React app wired up with django-vite (HMR in dev, manifest in prod) and the Inertia.js v3 client. Start from its frontend entrypoint (sample_project/frontend/main.tsx), page resolver (sample_project/frontend/inertia-resolver.tsx), and layout (sample_project/templates/base.html) — see sample_project/README.md for setup.

You can also check out the official Inertia docs at https://inertiajs.com/.

CSRF

Django's CSRF tokens are tightly coupled with rendering templates, so Inertia Django automatically handles adding the CSRF cookie to each Inertia response. The Inertia.js v3 client ships with its own XHR layer (Axios is no longer required) and reads the CSRF cookie / writes the CSRF header using its own default names, which don't match Django's. You'll need to either configure the v3 client OR rename the Django settings so they line up.

By default:

• v3 client: XSRF-TOKEN cookie, X-XSRF-TOKEN header.
• Django: csrftoken cookie, X-CSRFToken header.

You only need to choose one of the following options, just pick whichever makes the most sense to you!

Option 1: configure the Inertia v3 HTTP client at boot (in your entry.js):

import { http } from '@inertiajs/core'

http.setClient({
  xsrfCookieName: 'csrftoken',
  xsrfHeaderName: 'X-CSRFToken',
})

Option 2: rename Django settings to match the v3 defaults (in your settings.py):

CSRF_HEADER_NAME = 'HTTP_X_XSRF_TOKEN'
CSRF_COOKIE_NAME = 'XSRF-TOKEN'

Usage

Responses

Render Inertia responses is simple, you can either use the provided inertia render function or, for the most common use case, the inertia decorator. The render function accepts four arguments, the first is your request object. The second is the name of the component you want to render from within your pages directory (without extension). The third argument is a dict of props that should be provided to your components. The final argument is template_data, for any variables you want to provide to your template, but this is much less common.

from inertia import render
from .models import Event

def index(request):
  return render(request, 'Event/Index', props={
    'events': Event.objects.all()
  })

Or use the simpler decorator for the most common use cases

from inertia import inertia
from .models import Event

@inertia('Event/Index')
def index(request):
  return {
    'events': Event.objects.all(),
  }

If you need more control, you can also directly return the InertiaResponse class. It has the same arguments as the render method and subclasses HttpResponse to accept of all its arguments as well.

from inertia import InertiaResponse
from .models import Event

def index(request):
  return InertiaResponse(
    request,
    'Event/Index',
    props={
      'events': Event.objects.all()
    }
  )

Shared Data

If you have data that you want to be provided as a prop to every component (a common use-case is information about the authenticated user) you can use the share method. A common place to put this would be in some custom middleware.

from inertia import share
from django.conf import settings
from .models import User

def inertia_share(get_response):
  def middleware(request):
    share(request,
      app_name=settings.APP_NAME,
      user_count=lambda: User.objects.count(), # evaluated lazily at render time
      user=lambda: request.user, # evaluated lazily at render time
    )

    return get_response(request)
  return middleware

Every response also lists the top-level keys you registered via share() in the page object's sharedProps field (here: ["app_name", "user_count", "user"]). The v3 client uses that list to carry shared props over during instant visits, mirroring Laravel's expose_shared_prop_keys. Set INERTIA_EXPOSE_SHARED_PROP_KEYS = False to omit it.

Prop Serialization

Unlike Rails and Laravel, Django does not handle converting objects to JSON by default so Inertia Django offers two different ways to handle prop serialization.

InertiaJsonEncoder

The default behavior is via the InertiaJsonEncoder. The InertiaJsonEncoder is a barebones implementation that extends the DjangoJSONEncoder with the ability to handle QuerySets and models. Models are JSON encoded via Django's model_to_dict method excluding the field password. This method has limitations though, as model_to_dict does not include fields where editable=False (such as automatic timestamps).

InertiaMeta

Inertia Django supports an InertiaMeta nested class. Similar to Django Rest Framework's serializers, any class (not just models) can contain an InertiaMeta class which can specify how that class should be serialized to JSON. At this time, it only supports fields, but this may be extended in future versions.

class User(models.Model):
  name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
  password = models.CharField(max_length=255)
  created_at = models.DateField(auto_now_add=True)

  class InertiaMeta:
    fields = ('name', 'created_at')

External Redirects

It is possible to redirect to an external website, or even another non-Inertia endpoint in your app while handling an Inertia request. This can be accomplished using a server-side initiated window.location visit via the location method:

from inertia import location

def external():
    return location("http://foobar.com/")

It will generate a 409 Conflict response and include the destination URL in the X-Inertia-Location header. When this response is received client-side, Inertia will automatically perform a window.location = url visit.

Optional Props

On the front end, Inertia supports the concept of "partial reloads" where only the props requested are returned by the server. Sometimes, you may want to use this flow to avoid processing a particularly slow prop on the intial load. In this case, you can use Optional props. Optional props aren't evaluated unless they're specifically requested by name in a partial reload.

from inertia import optional, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'name': lambda: 'Brandon', # this will be rendered on the first load as usual
    'data': optional(lambda: some_long_calculation()), # this will only be run when specifically requested by partial props and WILL NOT be included on the initial load
  }

Deferred Props

Inertia supports the ability to defer the fetching of props until after the page has been initially rendered. Essentially this is similar to the concept of Optional props however Inertia provides convenient frontend components to automatically fetch the deferred props after the page has initially loaded, instead of requiring the user to initiate a reload. For more info, see Deferred props in the Inertia documentation.

To mark props as deferred on the server side use the defer function.

from inertia import defer, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'name': lambda: 'Brandon', # this will be rendered on the first load as usual
    'data': defer(lambda: some_long_calculation()), # this will only be run after the frontend has initially loaded and inertia requests this prop
  }

Grouping requests

By default, all deferred props get fetched in one request after the initial page is rendered, but you can choose to fetch data in parallel by grouping props together.

from inertia import defer, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'name': lambda: 'Brandon', # this will be rendered on the first load as usual
    'data': defer(lambda: some_long_calculation()),
    'data1': defer(lambda: some_long_calculation1(), group='group'),
    'data2': defer(lambda: some_long_calculation1(), 'group'),
  }

In the example above, the data1, and data2 props will be fetched in one request, while the data prop will be fetched in a separate request in parallel. Group names are arbitrary strings and can be anything you choose.

Rescuing failed deferred props

A deferred resolver that raises normally turns the whole deferred fetch into a 500. Pass rescue=True to rescue it instead, mirroring Laravel's Inertia::defer(..., rescue: true): the exception is logged on the inertia_django_full_of_juice logger, the prop is dropped from props, and its key is emitted via the page object's rescuedProps field — which the client's <Deferred> component uses to render its rescue slot.

from inertia import defer, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'stats': defer(lambda: flaky_stats_backend(), rescue=True),
  }

<Deferred data="stats" fallback={<Spinner />} rescue={({ reloading }) => (
  <button onClick={() => router.reload({ only: ['stats'] })} disabled={reloading}>
    Couldn't load stats — retry
  </button>
)}>
  <Stats stats={stats} />
</Deferred>

Merge Props

By default, Inertia overwrites props with the same name when reloading a page. However, there are instances, such as pagination or infinite scrolling, where that is not the desired behavior. In these cases, you can merge props instead of overwriting them.

from inertia import merge, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'name': lambda: 'Brandon',
    'data': merge(Paginator(objects, 3)),
  }

You can also combine deferred props with mergeable props to defer the loading of the prop and ultimately mark it as mergeable once it's loaded.

from inertia import defer, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'name': lambda: 'Brandon',
    'data': defer(lambda: Paginator(objects, 3), merge=True),
  }

Prepend Props

prepend is the mirror of merge. Instead of appending newly loaded values to the existing client-side prop, the v3 client prepends them. Useful for chat logs, activity feeds, and any list where new items belong at the top.

from inertia import inertia, prepend

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'messages': prepend(lambda: latest_messages()),
  }

Deep Merge Props

deep_merge recursively merges objects rather than overwriting them. Use it when a prop is a nested dictionary and partial reloads should layer new keys onto the existing client-side state.

from inertia import deep_merge, inertia

@inertia('ExampleComponent')
def example(request):
  return {
    'filters': deep_merge(lambda: build_filters()),
  }

Match props on

When a list is being merged (merge, prepend, deep_merge) or deferred-and-merged (defer(..., merge=True)), pass match_on=[...] to tell the v3 client which field(s) on each item identify it. The client uses those paths to dedup matching items instead of blindly concatenating, which is what you want for paginated lists, infinite scroll, and any merge that may overlap with already-loaded items.

from inertia import inertia, merge

@inertia('Users/Index')
def index(request):
    return {
        'users': merge(lambda: list_users(), match_on=['id']),
    }

match_on= is supported on merge, prepend, deep_merge, and defer. Each entry is a dot-path resolved against an item in the prop's list.

Once Props

once props are computed on the server, sent to the client, and then cached there. On the next visit, the client signals that it already has them (via X-Inertia-Except-Once-Props) and the server skips resolving the callable entirely. This is ideal for data that is expensive to compute but rarely changes per-user — pricing plans, feature flags, static config, etc.

from datetime import timedelta
from inertia import inertia, once

@inertia('Billing/Upgrade')
def upgrade(request):
    return {
        'plans': once(lambda: load_plans()),
        'plans_with_ttl': once(lambda: load_plans(), expires_in=timedelta(hours=1)),
        'plans_custom_key': once(lambda: load_plans(), key='plans-v2'),
    }

Supported keyword arguments:

• key: override the cache key (defaults to the prop name). Bump it when the underlying shape changes to invalidate stale client caches.
• fresh: force the server to re-resolve on this response even if the client claims to have cached it.
• expires_in: a timedelta or integer seconds. Computed into a unix-ms expiry sent to the client.
• expires_at: a datetime (timezone-aware preferred) or a unix-ms integer.

expires_in and expires_at are mutually exclusive.

Infinite Scroll

infinite_scroll wraps a paginated prop so the v3 client can drive append / prepend behavior from the X-Inertia-Infinite-Scroll-Merge-Intent header. The helper takes the request as an explicit second positional argument because Django doesn't expose an implicit "current request" — pass the same HttpRequest your view received. The caller is responsible for computing pagination metadata; the helper itself doesn't know about Paginator or any other paging abstraction.

from inertia import inertia, infinite_scroll
from .models import User

@inertia('Users/Index')
def index(request):
    page = int(request.GET.get('page', 1))
    page_size = 20
    qs = User.objects.all().order_by('id')
    users = list(qs[(page - 1) * page_size : page * page_size])
    total = qs.count()
    has_next = page * page_size < total
    return {
        'users': infinite_scroll(
            users,
            request,
            page_name='page',
            current_page=page,
            previous_page=page - 1 if page > 1 else None,
            next_page=page + 1 if has_next else None,
            match_on=['id'],
        ),
    }

The prop emits a scrollProps entry on the page object with pageName, previousPage, nextPage, currentPage, and a reset boolean derived from X-Inertia-Reset. Combined with match_on=['id'], the v3 client will dedup overlapping pages by item id.

Preserving fragments across redirects

Browsers don't send the URL fragment (the #section part) to the server, but the v3 client tracks it locally. When a view redirects after handling a request, you can flag the response so the client carries the fragment over to the redirect target.

from inertia import preserve_fragment
from django.shortcuts import redirect

def update(request):
    # ... handle update ...
    preserve_fragment(request)
    return redirect('/settings')

Additionally, InertiaMiddleware automatically converts any redirect response whose Location contains a #fragment (e.g. redirect('/foo#section')) on an Inertia request into a 409 + X-Inertia-Redirect, so the v3 client honors the fragment without any extra work on your part.

Flash data

flash() stores one-shot data in the session; the next Inertia render — full visit or partial reload — pulls it into the page object's top-level flash field, mirroring Laravel's Inertia::flash(). The client exposes it as usePage().flash, fires the global flash event (and any per-visit onFlash callback), and deliberately strips it from history state, so back/forward navigation never replays a stale toast.

from inertia import flash
from django.shortcuts import redirect

def update(request):
    # ... save ...
    flash(request, toast={"text": "Saved!", "kind": "success"})
    return redirect("/settings/")

Flash data survives redirects (it is only consumed when a page actually renders) and even the 409 stale-asset refresh — InertiaMiddleware writes back whatever a discarded stale response had already consumed. That exceeds Laravel's onVersionChange reflash while satisfying the protocol's reflash mandate: Laravel's Store::reflash() only re-marks flash key names and cannot restore values its render already pulled. In mixed Inertia/classic apps, note that flashed state simply waits in the session for the next Inertia render — classic template responses don't consume it — bounded by session expiry, the same way unread contrib.messages wait for their next read.

Bridging django.contrib.messages. If your flash messages already live in Django's messages framework, set INERTIA_FLASH_FROM_MESSAGES = True and every render drains them into flash.messages as {message, level, tags, extra_tags, level_tag} dicts — no middleware recipe needed, and because the drain happens at render time, partial reloads and multi-hop redirects can't consume a message without delivering it. MessageMiddleware must sit above InertiaMiddleware (the conventional order) so the storage is cleared on the way out. The hand-wired recipe of sharing messages as a regular prop keeps working if you prefer it; messages is a reserved flash key while the bridge is on.

Validation errors & error bags

The v3 protocol reserves an errors object on the page (page.props.errors). It defaults to {}, and the client treats a non-empty errors as "this request failed" — firing onError instead of onSuccess. This adapter always reserves that slot for you (it survives partial reloads, just like Laravel's Inertia::always), and ships the Laravel-style redirect-back loop as helpers:

from inertia import redirect_back

def update(request):
    form = MyForm(request.POST)
    if not form.is_valid():
        return redirect_back(request, errors=form, fallback="/settings/")
    # ... handle valid form ...
    return redirect("/settings/")

redirect_back() flashes the errors to the session (accepting a bound Form or a {field: message(s)} mapping) and redirects to the validated Referer (falling back to fallback, which runs through django.shortcuts.resolve_url so URL names work alongside literal paths; unlike Laravel's back() the referrer is checked with Django's url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme, so the header can't produce an open redirect). The next render pulls them into props.errors — first message per field, exactly what the client's form.errors expects. Non-field errors (from a form's clean()) arrive under Django's literal __all__ key, matching errors.get_json_data(). Each flash_errors() / redirect_back(errors=…) call replaces any errors already flashed — Django form errors are a per-run snapshot of the whole submission, the same wholesale replace as Laravel's withErrors. To keep a custom redirect, call flash_errors(request, errors) yourself and return any response you like. InertiaMiddleware already upgrades PUT/PATCH/DELETE redirects to 303, so the follow-up request is a GET that renders the flashed errors.

Error bags are handled automatically. When a form sets the errorBag option, the client sends the X-Inertia-Error-Bag header (and re-sends it while following the redirect); the render nests the flashed errors under that bag name (errors.createUser.email), so two forms on one page never see each other's errors.

Your own policy still wins: the session flow only fills props.errors when the render received no errors prop, so passing errors to render() or sharing it from middleware overrides the built-in flow. For the simpler same-route case (POST and re-render on the same view), skip the session entirely:

return render(request, "Settings/Edit", {"errors": {f: e[0] for f, e in form.errors.items()}})

Validation responses for useHttp

The v3 frontend ships a useHttp hook for non-Inertia XHR calls (think: small async actions that don't navigate). Unlike the Inertia visit flow, useHttp expects a 422 JSON response with the shape {"message": "...", "errors": {field: msg}} on validation failure. errors_response() builds exactly that.

from inertia import errors_response

def submit(request):
    form = MyForm(request.POST)
    if not form.is_valid():
        errors = {field: errs[0] for field, errs in form.errors.items()}
        return errors_response(errors, message="Please fix the highlighted fields.")
    # ... handle valid form ...

errors_response() is specifically for the useHttp hook. For regular Inertia visits (form submissions through useForm / router.post), use redirect_back(request, errors=…) from Validation errors & error bags above instead.

Precognition (live form validation)

The v3 client validates forms as the user types by replaying the form data to the server with a Precognition: true header (plus Precognition-Validate-Only listing the touched fields). In the Laravel ecosystem this is a framework feature, not an adapter one — here it ships as a per-view decorator, the Django equivalent of Laravel's precognitive middleware alias:

from django import forms
from inertia import precognition

class SignupForm(forms.Form):
    name = forms.CharField(max_length=12)
    email = forms.EmailField()

@precognition(SignupForm)
def signup(request):
    # Precognitive requests never reach this body — the decorator answers
    # them. Real submits run the view as usual.
    ...

const form = useForm('post', '/signup/', { name: '', email: '' })
// <input onBlur={() => form.validate('email')} … />
// form.validating · form.valid('email') · form.invalid('email') · form.errors.email

The decorator implements the wire contract the client hard-requires: validation success → 204 No Content with Precognition-Success: true; failure → 422 with {"message": …, "errors": {field: [messages]}}; every response — precognitive or not — carries Vary: Precognition and precognitive ones echo Precognition: true (without that header the client throws "Did not receive a Precognition response"). Precognition-Validate-Only scoping pops the unlisted fields off the form instance before validation — Django's sanctioned way to restrict a form — so untouched required fields never false-error and their validators never run; * in a pattern matches one dot segment, like Laravel. One consequence for cross-field validation: popped fields are absent from cleaned_data, so your clean() must read them with .get() (the documented Django contract), and add_error() on a popped field raises. Request bodies are parsed the way the client sends them: JSON by default, query params for GET/DELETE, multipart/form-data when file validation is enabled. The decorator is sync-only by design — the library targets synchronous Django (serve async deployments with gevent), so an async def view raises TypeError at decoration time; ORM-backed forms (ModelForm, ModelChoiceField) validate as usual on the synchronous path. It is method_decorator-compatible for CBVs. is_precognitive(request) and validate_only_keys(request) are exported for hand-rolled flows (e.g. DRF serializers).

Forms that need extra constructor arguments — SetPasswordForm(user, …), a ModelForm updating an instance — take them via form_kwargs, a per-request callable mirroring Django's FormMixin.get_form_kwargs:

@precognition(SetPasswordForm, form_kwargs=lambda request: {"user": request.user})
def change_password(request):
    ...

Malformed bodies are a deliberate Django-idiom divergence. An unparseable envelope (broken JSON, a non-object JSON body, a corrupt multipart payload) returns a 400 JSON {"message": "Malformed request body."} — still echoing Precognition: true — rather than Laravel's behavior of coercing the unparseable body to an empty payload and answering 422 (for JSON via Request::json's swallowed decode failure; for multipart via PHP's native form parsing). Django core's stance is that an unreadable envelope is an explicit 400 (MultiPartParserError → 400 in django/core/handlers/exception.py), and we follow it. The v3 client has no 400 status hook, so a malformed body surfaces as a rejected promise either way — the Precognition: true echo doesn't make the client handle the 400; it makes the rejection truthful (HTTP error 400, with this JSON reachable at error.response.data) instead of the misleading "Did not receive a Precognition response" error.

Json Encoding

Inertia Django ships with a custom JsonEncoder at inertia.utils.InertiaJsonEncoder that extends Django's DjangoJSONEncoder with additional logic to handle encoding models and Querysets. If you have other json encoding logic you'd prefer, you can set a new JsonEncoder via the settings.

History Encryption

Inertia.js supports history encryption to protect sensitive data in the browser's history state. This is useful when your pages contain sensitive information that shouldn't be stored in plain text in the browser's history. This feature requires HTTPS since it relies on window.crypto.subtle which is only available in secure contexts.

You can enable history encryption globally via the INERTIA_ENCRYPT_HISTORY setting in your settings.py:

INERTIA_ENCRYPT_HISTORY = True

For more granular control, you can enable encryption on specific views:

from inertia import encrypt_history, inertia

@inertia('TestComponent')
def encrypt_history_test(request):
    encrypt_history(request)
    return {}

# If you have INERTIA_ENCRYPT_HISTORY = True but want to disable encryption for specific views:
@inertia('PublicComponent')
def public_view(request):
    encrypt_history(request, False)  # Explicitly disable encryption for this view
    return {}

When users log out, you might want to clear the history to ensure no sensitive data can be accessed. You can do this by extending the logout view:

from inertia import clear_history
from django.contrib.auth import views as auth_views

class LogoutView(auth_views.LogoutView):
    def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        response = super().dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)
        clear_history(request)
        return response

SSR

Backend

• requests is used to make the SSR render call. It ships as a core dependency of this package, so no extra install step is needed.
• Enable SSR via the INERTIA_SSR_URL and INERTIA_SSR_ENABLED settings.
• Exclude specific routes from SSR with INERTIA_SSR_EXCLUDE, a list of regex patterns matched (re.search) against request.path. A request whose path matches any pattern skips the SSR render call and falls back to the client-side shell — useful for authenticated, per-user pages where SSR adds little value. Example: INERTIA_SSR_EXCLUDE = [r'^/admin/', r'^/dashboard/']. Invalid regexes are reported by a Django system check (inertia.E001) at startup rather than failing on the first request.
  • Porting from Laravel: these are Python regexes matched with re.search against request.path, which keeps its leading slash and is not anchored — unlike Laravel, which matches a glob against the slash-trimmed path and full URL. A Laravel Inertia::withoutSsr('admin/*') becomes INERTIA_SSR_EXCLUDE = [r'^/admin/'] here.

Frontend

You need an SSR-capable build of your frontend that runs as a Node server and answers the render calls Django POSTs to INERTIA_SSR_URL. The sample_project/ ships a working setup:

• sample_project/frontend/ssr.tsx — the SSR entrypoint (@inertiajs/react/server + createServer).
• npm run build-ssr builds it to sample_project/frontend/dist/ssr.js; run it with node frontend/dist/ssr.js (defaults to port 13714).
• sample_project/Dockerfile.ssr and sample_project/docker-compose.yml show the same flow as a dedicated SSR sidecar service.

For the framework-level details, follow the official Inertia.js server-side rendering docs.

Settings

Inertia Django has a few different settings options that can be set from within your project's settings.py file. Some of them have defaults.

The default config is shown below

INERTIA_VERSION = '1.0' # defaults to '1.0'; bump this when shipping new assets to force a hard reload. May also be a zero-arg callable (see below).
INERTIA_LAYOUT = 'layout.html' # required and has no default
INERTIA_JSON_ENCODER = CustomJsonEncoder # defaults to inertia.utils.InertiaJsonEncoder
INERTIA_SSR_URL = 'http://localhost:13714' # defaults to http://localhost:13714
INERTIA_SSR_ENABLED = False # defaults to False
INERTIA_SSR_EXCLUDE = [r'^/admin/'] # defaults to []; regex patterns matched (re.search) against request.path — matching paths skip SSR
INERTIA_ENCRYPT_HISTORY = False # defaults to False
INERTIA_EXPOSE_SHARED_PROP_KEYS = True # defaults to True; emit the sharedProps page field listing share() keys (instant visits)
INERTIA_FLASH_FROM_MESSAGES = False # defaults to False; drain django.contrib.messages into flash.messages at render time

Asset versioning (INERTIA_VERSION)

INERTIA_VERSION is the asset version Inertia emits in every page object and checks against the client's X-Inertia-Version header. When the value changes, the next GET returns a 409 Conflict with X-Inertia-Location so the browser does a full reload and picks up freshly-deployed assets.

It can be a plain value or a zero-arg callable (resolved once per request, then cast to a string — None becomes "", which disables versioning). The callable form lets you derive the version from Django's own static-files pipeline so it auto-busts on every deploy:

from django.contrib.staticfiles.storage import staticfiles_storage

def inertia_version():
    # Django 4.2+: an md5 digest over the staticfiles manifest that changes
    # whenever a collected asset changes. Requires ManifestStaticFilesStorage
    # and a `collectstatic` run; falls back otherwise.
    return getattr(staticfiles_storage, "manifest_hash", None) or "1.0"

INERTIA_VERSION = inertia_version

This mirrors Laravel, which hashes its Vite/Mix manifest. If you are not using ManifestStaticFilesStorage, keep the static string and bump it on deploy.

Testing

Inertia Django ships with a custom TestCase to give you some nice helper methods and assertions. To use it, just make sure your TestCase inherits from InertiaTestCase. InertiaTestCase inherits from Django's django.test.TestCase so it includes transaction support and a client.

from inertia.test import InertiaTestCase

class ExampleTestCase(InertiaTestCase):
  def test_show_assertions(self):
    self.client.get('/events/')

    # check the component
    self.assertComponentUsed('Event/Index')

    # access the component name
    self.assertEqual(self.component(), 'Event/Index')

    # props (including shared props)
    self.assertHasExactProps({name: 'Brandon', sport: 'hockey'})
    self.assertIncludesProps({sport: 'hockey'})

    # access props
    self.assertEquals(self.props()['name'], 'Brandon')

    # template data
    self.assertHasExactTemplateData({name: 'Brian', sport: 'basketball'})
    self.assertIncludesTemplateData({sport: 'basketball'})

    # access template data
    self.assertEquals(self.template_data()['name'], 'Brian')

The inertia test helper also includes a special inertia client that pre-sets the inertia headers for you to simulate an inertia response. You can access and use it just like the normal client with commands like self.inertia.get('/events/'). When using the inertia client, inertia custom assertions are not enabled though, so only use it if you want to directly assert against the json response.

Because v3 emits encryptHistory, clearHistory, and preserveFragment only when True, prefer asserting their effective value via .get(..., False) rather than direct key lookups in your tests:

self.assertEqual(self.page().get("encryptHistory", False), True)

Examples

• Django Svelte Template - A Django template and example project demonstrating Inertia with Svelte and SSR.
• Django React: A Django + React project including CRUD operations, form handling, authentication, deployment using Docker, and more.

Thank you

A huge thank you to the community members who have worked on InertiaJS for Django before us. Parts of this repo were particularly inspired by Andres Vargas and Samuel Girardin. Additional thanks to Andres for the Pypi project.