Minimalish Django Starter Kit

intro

Minimalish is a Django Project Template. It's an opiniated, deployment-ready, "good enough" starting point that includes most of everything you'd want to have in a Django project:

• dev / prod environment separation
• environment variables (per the classic 12factor) with fallback to .env (useful on dev)
• static file serving
• integration of the frontend bundler Vite so that you can combine a TypeScript frontend with a Django backend. this is great for React projects, which most frontend projects are these days.
  • you also don't have to use Vite or write a TypeScript frontend -- the classic Django html templating still works fine.
• all of the necessary files to deploy your site using disco

how to do it

copy & paste the code below to start a new Django project based on this template:

echo -n "what's your project name (short, lowercase-only, no spaces or hyphens, etc.)? "
read PROJECTNAME
mkdir $PROJECTNAME
cd $PROJECTNAME
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install Django==5.1
django-admin startproject --template=https://github.com/gregsadetsky/minimalish-django-starter/archive/main.zip -n .env.example -n README.starter.md -n serve.sh $PROJECTNAME .
pip install -r requirements.txt
git init
mv starter $PROJECTNAME
mv README.starter.md README.md
cp .env.example .env
mkdir core/frontend/static
python manage.py migrate
(cd core/frontend && npm install)

then:

• fill out the DJANGO_SECRET_KEY value in the .env file
• in one terminal, start the Django backend server with python manage.py runserver
• in another terminal:

cd core/frontend
npm run dev

• go to http://localhost:8000/ and do good work!

to deploy using disco:

• create a new repo (on github -- go here)
• git add/commit/push all of your code to this new repo
• refer to the disco Django+SQLite docs

more technical info

Minimalish uses:

• Django 5.1
• python 3.10/.11 ish
• pip / venv / requirements.txt
• .env configuration files on developers' machines using python-dotenv
• os-level env vars on production
• dev/prod separation in the settings
• integration of Vite using django-vite TODO
• a custom user model[^1]
• use of os.environ[] rather than the softer os.getenv() which by design silently fails. if an env var can't be found, that's a problem that needs addressing
• whitenoise for static file serving
• core default/main app with a mini / function view & template file
• the necessary files to deploy this using disco TODO

more extra bonus things

• I suggest you setup & use Black and Pyright via text editor packages. Black should auto-format on save. TODO add black via pre-commit

other resources

• https://12factor.net/ - started "it" all where "it" stands for good web app deployment practices
• https://github.com/cookiecutter/cookiecutter-django - exactly like this, "Cookiecutter Django is a framework for jumpstarting production-ready Django projects quickly" - but too much-y for my taste. it's great! I just wanted my own so I made this.
• https://github.com/jefftriplett/django-startproject - similar to this as well
• other ones: djangox, django-react-boilerplate, Django Material Kit

credit

this project was initially created during my time at the Recurse Center. thanks to Rob Simmons for the contributions!

[^1]: because you only get one chance