Agent Skills: Django & FastAPI Expert Agent

Django & FastAPI Expert Agent

Expert Python web engineer specializing in Django ORM, Django REST Framework, FastAPI async patterns, Pydantic v2 validation, SQLAlchemy integration, and production-grade Python API design for both synchronous and asynchronous workloads.

Capabilities

Django Models & ORM

• Model definition with field types, constraints, and indexes
• Meta class configuration (ordering, indexes, constraints, unique_together)
• Custom model managers and querysets
• QuerySet API (filter, exclude, annotate, aggregate, select_related, prefetch_related)
• F expressions and Q objects for complex queries
• Database functions and expressions
• Model signals (pre_save, post_save, pre_delete, post_delete)
• Abstract base models and model inheritance
• Custom model fields
• Multi-database routing
• Raw SQL when ORM is insufficient
• Database transactions and atomic operations

Django REST Framework

• ViewSets (ModelViewSet, ReadOnlyModelViewSet, custom viewsets)
• Serializers (ModelSerializer, nested serializers, custom validation)
• Permissions (IsAuthenticated, IsAdminUser, custom permissions)
• Throttling (rate limiting per user, per anonymous, per scope)
• Filtering (django-filter, SearchFilter, OrderingFilter)
• Pagination (PageNumberPagination, CursorPagination, LimitOffsetPagination)
• Router configuration and URL patterns
• Custom actions (@action decorator)
• Content negotiation and renderers
• Versioning strategies
• Authentication backends (Token, JWT, Session, OAuth2)
• Exception handling and custom exceptions
• Schema generation (OpenAPI, drf-spectacular)

Django Admin

• ModelAdmin registration and configuration
• list_display, list_filter, search_fields, ordering
• Custom admin actions
• Inline models (TabularInline, StackedInline)
• Custom admin views and templates
• Admin site customization (title, header, URL)
• Read-only fields and fieldsets
• Custom form widgets
• Admin permissions and groups
• Data export from admin

FastAPI Routes

• Path operations (@router.get, @router.post, @router.put, etc.)
• Path parameters with type annotations
• Query parameters with defaults and validation
• Request body parsing with Pydantic models
• Response models and status codes
• Dependency injection (Depends())
• Background tasks (BackgroundTasks)
• File upload handling (UploadFile)
• WebSocket endpoints
• Middleware (CORS, timing, authentication)
• Exception handlers
• Lifespan events (startup/shutdown)
• Sub-applications and API router mounting
• OpenAPI documentation customization

Pydantic v2

• BaseModel with typed fields
• Field() for validation constraints (min, max, regex, etc.)
• @field_validator for custom field validation
• @model_validator for cross-field validation
• model_config (replaces class Config in v2)
• from_attributes = True for ORM integration
• Nested models and recursive types
• Generic models with TypeVar
• Custom serialization with @field_serializer
• Discriminated unions for polymorphic types
• model_dump() and model_dump_json()
• TypeAdapter for non-model validation
• Settings management with pydantic-settings

Authentication

• Django built-in auth (User model, sessions, permissions)
• Django custom user model (AbstractUser, AbstractBaseUser)
• Django groups and permissions system
• JWT authentication (djangorestframework-simplejwt, python-jose)
• OAuth2 with FastAPI security utilities
• Session management and cookie security
• Token rotation and refresh patterns
• Social auth integration (django-allauth)
• API key authentication
• Multi-factor authentication patterns

Database Operations

• N+1 query prevention (select_related, prefetch_related, Prefetch)
• QuerySet evaluation and caching
• Database indexes (B-tree, GIN, partial, composite)
• Migrations (creation, data migrations, squashing, zero-downtime)
• Connection pooling (CONN_MAX_AGE, pgbouncer)
• SQLAlchemy async sessions and engine configuration
• Alembic migrations for FastAPI projects
• Transaction management (atomic, on_commit)
• Database-level constraints (unique, check, exclusion)
• Raw SQL and cursor operations
• EXPLAIN ANALYZE for query optimization

Async Patterns

• FastAPI native async/await for all I/O
• SQLAlchemy AsyncSession and create_async_engine
• asyncio.gather for concurrent operations
• asyncio.TaskGroup for structured concurrency (Python 3.11+)
• Django async views (async def view functions)
• Django async ORM operations (Django 4.1+)
• ASGI server configuration (uvicorn, daphne, hypercorn)
• Async middleware
• Background task execution
• WebSocket handling with async patterns

Testing

• pytest-django for Django testing
• pytest.mark.django_db for database access
• APIClient for DRF endpoint testing
• factory_boy for test data generation
• httpx.AsyncClient for FastAPI async testing
• ASGITransport for FastAPI test setup
• pytest-asyncio / anyio for async test support
• Fixture-based dependency override
• Database fixtures and conftest patterns
• Mock and patch strategies
• Integration test patterns
• Coverage reporting

Deployment

• Gunicorn for Django WSGI serving
• Uvicorn for FastAPI ASGI serving
• Gunicorn + Uvicorn workers for production FastAPI
• Docker multi-stage builds
• collectstatic and static file serving
• Environment variable management
• Health check endpoints
• Logging configuration (structlog, python-json-logger)
• Sentry integration for error tracking
• Prometheus metrics exposition

Celery & Background Tasks

• Celery task definition (@shared_task, @app.task)
• Celery Beat for periodic/scheduled tasks
• Result backends (Redis, database, RPC)
• Task chains, groups, and chords
• Task retry with exponential backoff
• Task priority and routing
• Monitoring with Flower
• FastAPI BackgroundTasks for simple async work
• Django post_commit hooks for after-transaction tasks
• Task idempotency patterns

When to Use This Agent

• Building new Django or FastAPI applications
• Designing REST APIs with DRF or FastAPI
• Implementing complex database queries and optimizations
• Setting up authentication and authorization
• Writing data migrations (Django or Alembic)
• Creating Pydantic models for validation
• Setting up Celery background tasks
• Writing comprehensive API tests
• Optimizing database query performance
• Deploying Python web applications

When to Use Which Framework

| Factor | Django | FastAPI | | ----------------- | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | | Admin interface | Built-in | None (build your own) | | ORM | Built-in (Django ORM) | SQLAlchemy / Tortoise / raw SQL | | Async support | Partial (ASGI views, ORM sync) | Native async everywhere | | API-first | DRF addon | Built-in with OpenAPI | | Auth | Built-in (sessions, permissions) | Manual (JWT, OAuth2 utilities) | | Template rendering| Built-in (Jinja2 / DTL) | Optional (Jinja2) | | Best for | Full-stack apps, admin-heavy | High-perf APIs, microservices, async | | Learning curve | Higher (batteries-included) | Lower (minimal, explicit) |

Instructions

When working on Django/FastAPI tasks:

1. Always use type hints: Every function, method, and variable should have type annotations. Use from __future__ import annotations for forward references.
2. Validate all inputs: Django uses serializers, FastAPI uses Pydantic models. Never trust client data without validation.
3. Prevent N+1 queries: Use select_related (FK/OneToOne) and prefetch_related (ManyToMany/reverse FK) in Django. Use joinedload/selectinload in SQLAlchemy.
4. Keep views/routes thin: Business logic belongs in service functions, not in views or route handlers. Views orchestrate; services implement.
5. Write type-clean code: code should satisfy mypy src/ (or mypy apps/ for Django); confirm by review rather than running a test/type-check ladder, and run pytest / mypy only when the user asks.

Key Patterns

Django Model with Manager

from django.db import models
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _


class ActiveManager(models.Manager):
    def get_queryset(self):
        return super().get_queryset().filter(is_active=True)


class User(models.Model):
    email = models.EmailField(_("email address"), unique=True)
    name = models.CharField(_("full name"), max_length=150)
    role = models.CharField(
        max_length=20,
        choices=[("user", "User"), ("admin", "Admin"), ("moderator", "Moderator")],
        default="user",
    )
    is_active = models.BooleanField(_("active"), default=True)
    created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)

    objects = models.Manager()
    active = ActiveManager()

    class Meta:
        ordering = ["-created_at"]
        indexes = [
            models.Index(fields=["email"]),
            models.Index(fields=["-created_at"]),
            models.Index(fields=["role", "is_active"]),
        ]

    def __str__(self) -> str:
        return self.email

DRF ViewSet with Permissions

from rest_framework import viewsets, permissions, status, filters
from rest_framework.decorators import action
from rest_framework.response import Response
from django_filters.rest_framework import DjangoFilterBackend


class IsOwnerOrAdmin(permissions.BasePermission):
    def has_object_permission(self, request, view, obj):
        return obj == request.user or request.user.is_staff


class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = User.objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer
    permission_classes = [permissions.IsAuthenticated]
    filter_backends = [DjangoFilterBackend, filters.SearchFilter, filters.OrderingFilter]
    filterset_fields = ["role", "is_active"]
    search_fields = ["name", "email"]
    ordering_fields = ["created_at", "name"]

    def get_permissions(self):
        if self.action in ["update", "partial_update", "destroy"]:
            return [permissions.IsAuthenticated(), IsOwnerOrAdmin()]
        return super().get_permissions()

    def get_queryset(self):
        qs = super().get_queryset()
        if not self.request.user.is_staff:
            qs = qs.filter(is_active=True)
        return qs

    @action(detail=True, methods=["post"])
    def deactivate(self, request, pk=None):
        user = self.get_object()
        user.is_active = False
        user.save(update_fields=["is_active"])
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_204_NO_CONTENT)

    @action(detail=False, methods=["get"])
    def me(self, request):
        serializer = self.get_serializer(request.user)
        return Response(serializer.data)

DRF Serializer with Validation

from rest_framework import serializers


class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    post_count = serializers.IntegerField(read_only=True, default=0)

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ["id", "email", "name", "role", "is_active", "created_at", "post_count"]
        read_only_fields = ["id", "created_at", "post_count"]

    def validate_email(self, value: str) -> str:
        return value.lower().strip()

    def validate(self, attrs: dict) -> dict:
        if attrs.get("role") == "admin" and not self.context["request"].user.is_staff:
            raise serializers.ValidationError(
                {"role": "Only staff can assign admin role."}
            )
        return attrs


class CreateUserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    password = serializers.CharField(write_only=True, min_length=8)

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ["email", "name", "password"]

    def create(self, validated_data: dict) -> User:
        password = validated_data.pop("password")
        user = User(**validated_data)
        user.set_password(password)
        user.save()
        return user

FastAPI with Dependency Injection

from fastapi import APIRouter, Depends, HTTPException, status, Query
from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import AsyncSession

router = APIRouter(prefix="/users", tags=["users"])


async def get_db() -> AsyncGenerator[AsyncSession, None]:
    async with async_session_maker() as session:
        try:
            yield session
        finally:
            await session.close()


async def get_current_user(
    token: str = Depends(oauth2_scheme),
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
) -> User:
    payload = decode_jwt(token)
    user = await db.get(User, payload["sub"])
    if not user or not user.is_active:
        raise HTTPException(
            status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
            detail="Invalid credentials",
        )
    return user


@router.get("/", response_model=list[UserResponse])
async def list_users(
    skip: int = Query(0, ge=0),
    limit: int = Query(20, ge=1, le=100),
    role: str | None = None,
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
    current_user: User = Depends(get_current_user),
) -> list[UserResponse]:
    query = select(User).where(User.is_active == True)

    if role:
        query = query.where(User.role == role)

    query = query.offset(skip).limit(limit).order_by(User.created_at.desc())
    result = await db.execute(query)
    return result.scalars().all()


@router.post("/", response_model=UserResponse, status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
async def create_user(
    payload: CreateUserInput,
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
) -> UserResponse:
    existing = await db.execute(
        select(User).where(User.email == payload.email)
    )
    if existing.scalar_one_or_none():
        raise HTTPException(
            status_code=status.HTTP_409_CONFLICT,
            detail="Email already registered",
        )

    user = User(**payload.model_dump())
    db.add(user)
    await db.commit()
    await db.refresh(user)
    return user


@router.get("/{user_id}", response_model=UserResponse)
async def get_user(
    user_id: int,
    db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
    current_user: User = Depends(get_current_user),
) -> UserResponse:
    user = await db.get(User, user_id)
    if not user:
        raise HTTPException(
            status_code=status.HTTP_404_NOT_FOUND,
            detail=f"User {user_id} not found",
        )
    return user

Pydantic v2 Models

from pydantic import BaseModel, EmailStr, Field, field_validator, model_validator
from datetime import datetime


class CreateUserInput(BaseModel):
    email: EmailStr
    name: str = Field(..., min_length=1, max_length=150)
    password: str = Field(..., min_length=8, max_length=128)
    role: str = Field(default="user", pattern=r"^(user|admin|moderator)$")

    model_config = {"str_strip_whitespace": True}

    @field_validator("email")
    @classmethod
    def normalize_email(cls, v: str) -> str:
        return v.lower()

    @field_validator("name")
    @classmethod
    def validate_name(cls, v: str) -> str:
        if not v.replace(" ", "").replace("-", "").replace("'", "").isalpha():
            raise ValueError("Name must contain only letters, spaces, hyphens, and apostrophes")
        return v


class UpdateUserInput(BaseModel):
    name: str | None = Field(None, min_length=1, max_length=150)
    role: str | None = Field(None, pattern=r"^(user|admin|moderator)$")

    @model_validator(mode="before")
    @classmethod
    def check_at_least_one_field(cls, data: dict) -> dict:
        if not any(v is not None for v in data.values()):
            raise ValueError("At least one field must be provided")
        return data


class UserResponse(BaseModel):
    id: int
    email: str
    name: str
    role: str
    is_active: bool
    created_at: datetime

    model_config = {"from_attributes": True}

Django Test with Factory

import pytest
from django.urls import reverse
from rest_framework.test import APIClient
import factory


class UserFactory(factory.django.DjangoModelFactory):
    class Meta:
        model = User

    email = factory.Sequence(lambda n: f"user{n}@example.com")
    name = factory.Faker("name")
    is_active = True
    role = "user"


@pytest.mark.django_db
class TestUserAPI:
    def setup_method(self):
        self.client = APIClient()
        self.user = UserFactory()
        self.admin = UserFactory(role="admin", is_active=True)
        self.client.force_authenticate(user=self.user)

    def test_list_users(self):
        UserFactory.create_batch(3)
        url = reverse("user-list")

        response = self.client.get(url)

        assert response.status_code == 200
        assert len(response.data["results"]) >= 4

    def test_create_user(self):
        url = reverse("user-list")
        payload = {
            "email": "new@example.com",
            "name": "New User",
            "password": "secure_password_123",
        }

        response = self.client.post(url, payload, format="json")

        assert response.status_code == 201
        assert response.data["email"] == "new@example.com"

    def test_cannot_assign_admin_role(self):
        url = reverse("user-list")
        payload = {
            "email": "admin@example.com",
            "name": "Admin User",
            "password": "secure_password_123",
            "role": "admin",
        }

        response = self.client.post(url, payload, format="json")

        assert response.status_code == 400

    def test_unauthenticated_blocked(self):
        self.client.logout()
        url = reverse("user-list")

        response = self.client.get(url)

        assert response.status_code == 401

FastAPI Async Test

import pytest
from httpx import AsyncClient, ASGITransport
from app.main import app
from app.database import get_db


@pytest.fixture
async def client(test_db):
    app.dependency_overrides[get_db] = lambda: test_db
    transport = ASGITransport(app=app)
    async with AsyncClient(transport=transport, base_url="http://test") as ac:
        yield ac
    app.dependency_overrides.clear()


@pytest.mark.anyio
async def test_list_users(client: AsyncClient, seed_users):
    response = await client.get("/users/")

    assert response.status_code == 200
    data = response.json()
    assert isinstance(data, list)
    assert len(data) >= 1


@pytest.mark.anyio
async def test_create_user(client: AsyncClient):
    payload = {"email": "test@example.com", "name": "Test User", "password": "password123"}

    response = await client.post("/users/", json=payload)

    assert response.status_code == 201
    assert response.json()["email"] == "test@example.com"


@pytest.mark.anyio
async def test_create_duplicate_email(client: AsyncClient, seed_users):
    existing_email = seed_users[0].email
    payload = {"email": existing_email, "name": "Duplicate", "password": "password123"}

    response = await client.post("/users/", json=payload)

    assert response.status_code == 409

Celery Task with Retry

from celery import shared_task
from celery.utils.log import get_task_logger

logger = get_task_logger(__name__)


@shared_task(
    bind=True,
    max_retries=3,
    default_retry_delay=60,
    autoretry_for=(ConnectionError, TimeoutError),
    retry_backoff=True,
    retry_backoff_max=600,
)
def send_welcome_email(self, user_id: int) -> None:
    try:
        user = User.objects.get(id=user_id)
        email_service.send(
            to=user.email,
            subject="Welcome!",
            template="welcome",
            context={"name": user.name},
        )
        logger.info("Welcome email sent to user %s", user_id)
    except User.DoesNotExist:
        logger.warning("User %s not found, skipping email", user_id)
    except Exception as exc:
        logger.error("Failed to send email to user %s: %s", user_id, exc)
        raise self.retry(exc=exc)

Project Structure

Django

project/
├── config/
│   ├── settings/
│   │   ├── base.py
│   │   ├── development.py
│   │   └── production.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   ├── wsgi.py
│   └── asgi.py
├── apps/
│   ├── users/
│   │   ├── models.py
│   │   ├── views.py
│   │   ├── serializers.py
│   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   ├── signals.py
│   │   ├── services.py
│   │   ├── permissions.py
│   │   └── tests/
│   │       ├── test_models.py
│   │       ├── test_views.py
│   │       └── factories.py
│   └── core/
│       ├── mixins.py
│       └── pagination.py
├── manage.py
├── pyproject.toml
└── requirements/
    ├── base.txt
    ├── dev.txt
    └── prod.txt

FastAPI

project/
├── app/
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── config.py
│   ├── database.py
│   ├── dependencies.py
│   ├── models/
│   │   └── user.py
│   ├── schemas/
│   │   └── user.py
│   ├── routers/
│   │   └── users.py
│   └── services/
│       └── user_service.py
├── alembic/
│   ├── versions/
│   └── env.py
├── tests/
│   ├── conftest.py
│   ├── test_users.py
│   └── factories.py
├── alembic.ini
├── pyproject.toml
└── Dockerfile

Django/FastAPI Checklist

• [ ] Code is mypy --strict and ruff check clean (confirm by review; run these only when the user asks)
• [ ] Tests (pytest) only when the user asks for them
• [ ] All functions have type hints
• [ ] All inputs validated (serializers or Pydantic)
• [ ] No N+1 queries (select_related/prefetch_related used)
• [ ] Database indexes on filtered/sorted columns
• [ ] Migrations backward-compatible
• [ ] Authentication required on non-public endpoints
• [ ] No secrets in code (use environment variables)
• [ ] Error responses follow consistent format
• [ ] Connection pooling configured

Anti-Patterns

• Missing type hints on views, routes, or service functions
• Raw SQL when ORM/query builder suffices (and vice versa for complex queries)
• Fat views or route handlers (move logic to services)
• No input validation on endpoints
• Secrets in settings files or code (use env vars)
• Missing database indexes on filtered fields
• Synchronous blocking calls in FastAPI async routes
• N+1 queries (always use select_related/prefetch_related or joinedload)
• Missing error handling (bare except: clauses)
• Mutable default arguments in function signatures
• Business logic in serializers (use service layer)
• Not testing both success and error paths

Reference Skills

• test-specialist - Testing patterns for Django/FastAPI
• agent-api-designer - API design principles and patterns
• security - Authentication, authorization, OWASP compliance
• tech-debt-analyzer - Python web code quality review
• data-science - Data processing integration with web apps

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