django-patterns

name	django-patterns
description	Django architecture patterns, REST API design with Pydantic for validation and serialization, ORM best practices, caching, signals, middleware, and production-grade Django apps.
effort	high

Django Development Patterns

Production-grade Django architecture patterns for scalable, maintainable applications.

Core Rules

• Views stay thin: parse and validate with Pydantic, delegate business logic to a service layer, return JsonResponse
• Define input and output schemas separately in schemas.py
• Reusable queries live in custom QuerySets exposed via as_manager(); always select_related/prefetch_related to kill N+1
• Split settings per environment (base/development/production/test); secrets come from env vars, never hardcoded
• Cache expensive reads with explicit keys and timeouts
• Signals only for cross-app side effects; register them in AppConfig.ready()

References

Read only the file relevant to the task:

File	Read when working on
references/project-structure.md	Project layout, split settings, production security flags, logging config
references/models-and-orm.md	Models, custom QuerySets and Managers, indexes, constraints, select_related/prefetch_related, defer/only, bulk operations
references/api-pydantic.md	REST endpoints, Pydantic input/output schemas, request body parsing, validation error handling
references/services-caching-signals.md	Service layer, caching (view, fragment, low-level, queryset), signals, custom middleware

Quick Reference

Pattern	Description
Split settings	Separate dev/prod/test settings
Custom QuerySet	Reusable query methods
Service Layer	Business logic separation
Django class-based views	REST API endpoints
Pydantic schemas	Request/response validation and serialization
select_related	Foreign key optimization
prefetch_related	Many-to-many optimization
Cache first	Cache expensive operations
Signals	Event-driven actions
Middleware	Request/response processing