django, uv, direnv, cookies

It’s 2025 man, and I’m starting a new Django project. There’s a billion options for management. I want

• linux
• uv (instead of poetry)
• vscode
• secrets in .env
• podman or docker for redis and postgres
• boilerplate with all-auth, custom user, etc

I choose to use:

• cookiecutter-django

Recipe:

# get boilerplate - excessive for simple projects but whatevers
cookiecutter gh:cookiecutter/cookiecutter-django # answer questions 
cd <project>
# convert to pyproject.toml (instead of requirements.txt)
uv add -r requirements/base.txt 
uv add -r requirements/local.txt --dev
rm -rf requirements
# 

Environment

Create .env with variable and secrets,

Caller (e.g. uv, systemd, vscode), not code, is responsible for loading environment.

Use direnv for your command line, but don’t rely on it for tools (e.g. vscode should load .env itself). Ensure you export the variables, don’t just source them:

# .envrc
set -a # auto export vars
source .env 
set +a

Settings

CookieCutter uses base.py, then “local.py”, etc. That’s fine. I tweak things:

• remove loading of Environ
• use os.environ[“MY_VAR”] to fast fail if env var not there
• simplify / remove unused settings

Postgres and Redis in Container

services:
  db:
    image: postgres:17
    container_name: basixbot-postgres
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: ${POSTGRES_DB}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
    ports:
      # host:container — change 5439 to whatever host port you want
      - ${PGHOST_PORT}:5432
    volumes:
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: unless-stopped

  redis:
    image: redis:7
    container_name: basixbot-redis
    # ports:
    #   # host:container — change 6381 to whatever host port you want
    #   - 6381:6379
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  pgdata:

Webpack

npm install
npm run build # writes to project/app/static/webpack_bundles/css|js