plain.dev

A single command that runs everything you need for local development.

Plain dev command example

The plain.dev package can be installed from PyPI, and does not need to be added to INSTALLED_PACKAGES.

plain dev
plain dev services
plain pre-commit
plain contrib
VS Code debugging

`plain dev`

The plain dev command does several things:

Sets PLAIN_CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS to localhost by default
Runs plain preflight to check for any issues
Executes any pending model migrations
Starts gunicorn with --reload
Runs plain tailwind compile --watch, if plain.tailwind is installed
Any custom process defined in pyproject.toml at tool.plain.dev.run
Necessary services (ex. Postgres) defined in pyproject.toml at tool.plain.dev.services

Services

Use services to define databases or other processes that your app needs to be functional. The services will be started automatically in plain dev, but also in plain pre-commit (so preflight and tests have a database).

Ultimately, how you run your development database is up to you. But a recommended starting point is to use Docker:

# pyproject.toml
[tool.plain.dev.services]
postgres = {cmd = "docker run --name app-postgres --rm -p 54321:5432 -v $(pwd)/.plain/dev/pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres postgres:15 postgres"}

Custom processes

Unlike services, custom processes are only run during plain dev. This is a good place to run something like ngrok or a Plain worker, which you might need to use your local site, but don't need running for executing tests, for example.

# pyproject.toml
[tool.plain.dev.run]
ngrok = {command = "ngrok http $PORT"}

`plain dev services`

Starts your services by themselves.

`plain pre-commit`

A built-in pre-commit hook that can be installed with plain pre-commit --install.

Runs:

Custom commands defined in pyproject.toml at tool.plain.pre-commit.run
plain code check, if plain.code is installed
uv lock --locked, if using uv
plain preflight --database default
plain migrate --check
plain makemigrations --dry-run --check
plain compile
plain test

VS Code debugging

Debug Plain with VS Code

Since plain dev runs multiple processes at once, the regular pdb debuggers don't quite work.

Instead, we include microsoft/debugpy and an attach function to make it even easier to use VS Code's debugger.

First, import and run the debug.attach() function:

class HomeView(TemplateView):
    template_name = "home.html"

    def get_template_context(self):
        context = super().get_template_context()

        # Make sure the debugger is attached (will need to be if runserver reloads)
        from plain.dev import debug; debug.attach()

        # Add a breakpoint (or use the gutter in VS Code to add one)
        breakpoint()

        return context

When you load the page, you'll see "Waiting for debugger to attach...".

You can then run the VS Code debugger and attach to an existing Python process, at localhost:5678.

Metadata

Release files for plain.dev 0.20.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for plain.dev 0.20.1
File	Size	Uploaded
plain_dev-0.20.1.tar.gz	22.4 kB	Feb 18, 2025	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for plain.dev 0.20.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
plain_dev-0.20.1-py3-none-any.whl 30.2 kB Feb 18, 2025	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 52.6 kB

Release files / plain_dev-0.20.1.tar.gz

Download URL	plain_dev-0.20.1.tar.gz
Size	22.4 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`9a026dc88fef2e94d75c5108a8603c64bee6c01ecbc166c06ce0cc0c064e6bc8`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`2a4aa2fb55e47c6e823f6b221d430d3e5c3989e4e170fea03b4eeedf77c50e20`
Upload date	Feb 18, 2025
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`uv/0.6.1`

Release files / plain_dev-0.20.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	plain_dev-0.20.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	30.2 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`a94b377b9632af7614e964bab27717bac209a631b2ee114af59a480ffd51cd41`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`578d3ac744b68c6a9bcba223a392ad01be324539e6cf7f9d42e00f8187c52676`
Upload date	Feb 18, 2025
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`uv/0.6.1`