django-unique-user-email

Enable login-by-email with the default User model for your Django project by making auth.User.email unique.

A quick note on why?

Django's leaky battery is its recommendation that you create a custom user model. Auth is so central and so standard that, into the high-nines (99.99%?), the vast majority of projects should never need to customise the central auth model. This is a battery that Django should very much provide.

There's a complexity tax from exposing the auth model. There's a performance tax as the auth model becomes a generic dumping ground for User related data that has nothing to do with authentication. There's a learning tax as users hit the custom user model, and the (frankly, misplaced) warnings about it's importance.

Again, the vast majority of projects should never need to customise the central auth model.

Can I login with my email?

Most projects, all folks wanted was login-by-email. By making the default auth.User model have unique email field, and a few other bits and bobs, this is enabled.

The goal of this package is to give you the tools you need for login-by-email with Django's default User model. I believe this should be a option in Django itself, so it's a proof-of-concept for a future discussion there too.

A longer discussion: Evolving Django’s auth.User

Previously, a blog post that says a little by way of introduction.

Overview

• Install from pip:

  pip install django-unique-user-email

• Add to INSTALLED_APPS

  INSTALLED_APPS = [
      "django.contrib.admin",
      "django.contrib.auth",
      "django.contrib.contenttypes",
      "django.contrib.sessions",
      "django.contrib.messages",
      "django.contrib.staticfiles",
  
      "unique_user_email",
      ...
  ]

• Migrate to add the unique constraint to User.email.

• Install auth backend to allow email login

  AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
      'unique_user_email.backend.EmailBackend',
      'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
  ]

• Use the custom AuthenticationForm to login with username or email.

  # urls.py
  from django.contrib.auth.views import LoginView
  from unique_user_email.forms import AuthenticationForm
  
  urlpatterns = [
      # Route LoginView before other auth views to match first.
      # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/default/#module-django.contrib.auth.views
      path(
          "accounts/login/",
          LoginView.as_view(form_class=AuthenticationForm),
          name="login",
      ),
      ...
  ]

Fuller tutorial, Coming Soon.

Testing

• Clone the repo, create a virtual environment, and pip install -e . the package.

• You can run with just test.

  This wraps the full command:

  django-admin test --settings=tests.settings --pythonpath=.