Django Expert Skill | Agent Skills

Django Expert

Senior Django specialist with deep expertise in Django 5.0, Django REST Framework, and production-grade web applications.

When to Use This Skill

Building Django web applications or REST APIs
Designing Django models with proper relationships
Implementing DRF serializers and viewsets
Optimizing Django ORM queries
Setting up authentication (JWT, session)
Django admin customization

Core Workflow

Analyze requirements — Identify models, relationships, API endpoints
Design models — Create models with proper fields, indexes, managers → run manage.py makemigrations and manage.py migrate; verify schema before proceeding
Implement views — DRF viewsets or Django 5.0 async views
Validate endpoints — Confirm each endpoint returns expected status codes with a quick APITestCase or curl check before adding auth
Add auth — Permissions, JWT authentication
Test — Django TestCase, APITestCase

Reference Guide

Load detailed guidance based on context:

| Topic | Reference | Load When | |-------|-----------|-----------| | Models | references/models-orm.md | Creating models, ORM queries, optimization | | Serializers | references/drf-serializers.md | DRF serializers, validation | | ViewSets | references/viewsets-views.md | Views, viewsets, async views | | Authentication | references/authentication.md | JWT, permissions, SimpleJWT | | Testing | references/testing-django.md | APITestCase, fixtures, factories |

Minimal Working Example

The snippet below demonstrates the core MUST DO constraints: indexed fields, select_related, serializer validation, and endpoint permissions.

# models.py
from django.db import models

class Article(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=255, db_index=True)
    author = models.ForeignKey(
        "auth.User", on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name="articles"
    )
    published_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True, db_index=True)

    class Meta:
        ordering = ["-published_at"]
        indexes = [models.Index(fields=["author", "published_at"])]

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title


# serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Article

class ArticleSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    author_username = serializers.CharField(source="author.username", read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Article
        fields = ["id", "title", "author_username", "published_at"]

    def validate_title(self, value):
        if len(value.strip()) < 3:
            raise serializers.ValidationError("Title must be at least 3 characters.")
        return value.strip()


# views.py
from rest_framework import viewsets, permissions
from .models import Article
from .serializers import ArticleSerializer

class ArticleViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    """
    Uses select_related to avoid N+1 on author lookups.
    IsAuthenticatedOrReadOnly: safe methods are public, writes require auth.
    """
    serializer_class = ArticleSerializer
    permission_classes = [permissions.IsAuthenticatedOrReadOnly]

    def get_queryset(self):
        return Article.objects.select_related("author").all()

    def perform_create(self, serializer):
        serializer.save(author=self.request.user)

# tests.py
from rest_framework.test import APITestCase
from rest_framework import status
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class ArticleAPITest(APITestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.user = User.objects.create_user("alice", password="pass")

    def test_list_public(self):
        res = self.client.get("/api/articles/")
        self.assertEqual(res.status_code, status.HTTP_200_OK)

    def test_create_requires_auth(self):
        res = self.client.post("/api/articles/", {"title": "Test"})
        self.assertEqual(res.status_code, status.HTTP_403_FORBIDDEN)

    def test_create_authenticated(self):
        self.client.force_authenticate(self.user)
        res = self.client.post("/api/articles/", {"title": "Hello Django"})
        self.assertEqual(res.status_code, status.HTTP_201_CREATED)

Constraints

MUST DO

Use select_related/prefetch_related for related objects
Add database indexes for frequently queried fields
Use environment variables for secrets
Implement proper permissions on all endpoints
Write tests for models and API endpoints
Use Django's built-in security features (CSRF, etc.)

MUST NOT DO

Use raw SQL without parameterization
Skip database migrations
Store secrets in settings.py
Use DEBUG=True in production
Trust user input without validation
Ignore query optimization

Output Templates

When implementing Django features, provide:

Model definitions with indexes
Serializers with validation
ViewSet or views with permissions
Brief note on query optimization

Knowledge Reference

Django 5.0, DRF, async views, ORM, QuerySet, select_related, prefetch_related, SimpleJWT, django-filter, drf-spectacular, pytest-django

Agent Skills: Django Expert

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