django-testing-layout

name	django-testing-layout
description	Test layout, factory_boy over fixtures, and conftest.py structure.

Django Testing Layout

A well-structured testing setup prevents flaky tests, reduces boilerplate, and ensures test suites remain fast and maintainable.

---

1. Project Test Structure

Tests should live inside the app they are testing, separated by layer.

✅ Recommended Layout:

apps/billing/
├── tests/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── conftest.py          # App-specific Pytest fixtures
│   ├── factories.py         # factory_boy definitions
│   ├── test_models.py
│   ├── test_services.py     # Pure Python unit tests for business logic
│   ├── test_selectors.py
│   └── test_views.py        # APIClient / WebTest integration tests

Global Fixtures

For project-wide fixtures (e.g. creating authenticated API clients, or global mock setup), use a root-level conftest.py:

myproject/
├── conftest.py              # Root conftest (global fixtures)
├── apps/
│   ├── billing/
│   └── users/

2. factory_boy vs. Fixtures

❌ Anti-pattern: Using Django JSON/YAML fixtures (fixtures/data.json). Why? Static fixtures are notoriously brittle. If you add a required field to a model or change the schema, you must manually update every static fixture file. They also obscure test data from the test itself, making it hard to read.

✅ Recommended: Use factory_boy. Factories generate dynamic test data on the fly and are resilient to schema changes.

# apps/users/tests/factories.py
import factory
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model

User = get_user_model()

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

    username = factory.Sequence(lambda n: f"user_{n}")
    email = factory.LazyAttribute(lambda obj: f"{obj.username}@example.com")
    is_active = True

In your tests:

# apps/users/tests/test_services.py
from apps.users.tests.factories import UserFactory

def test_deactivate_user(db):
    # Generates a user in the DB dynamically
    user = UserFactory(is_active=True)
    
    deactivate_user(user)
    
    assert not user.is_active

3. Pytest conftest.py

Use conftest.py to share setup logic seamlessly across tests via Pytest fixtures, instead of using setUp in class-based tests.

✅ Recommended conftest.py:

# conftest.py
import pytest
from rest_framework.test import APIClient
from apps.users.tests.factories import UserFactory

@pytest.fixture
def api_client():
    return APIClient()

@pytest.fixture
def user():
    return UserFactory()

@pytest.fixture
def auth_client(api_client, user):
    """Returns an APIClient authenticated as a normal user."""
    api_client.force_authenticate(user=user)
    return api_client

Usage in tests:

def test_authenticated_endpoint(auth_client):
    response = auth_client.get('/api/billing/invoices/')
    assert response.status_code == 200

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