| name | verify |
| description | Run this Django app locally against a throwaway database and drive its pages over HTTP to observe a change working. Use when verifying student/cadmin page behavior end-to-end. |
Verifying changes in this app
Django server-rendered app. The surface is HTTP + rendered HTML, so verify by
running the server and fetching pages — not by running the test suite.
Throwaway database (never touch the dev db)
DATABASE_URL overrides the default sqlite:///db/db.sqlite3. Point it at a
scratch file so seeding doesn't mutate the real dev data:
export DATABASE_URL="sqlite:///$SCRATCH/verify.sqlite3"
uv run python manage.py migrate
uv run python manage.py shell < seed.py
uv run python manage.py runserver 8971 --noreload
Health check to confirm it's up: curl http://127.0.0.1:8971/api/health/
URL shapes
Homework pages are /<course_slug>/homework/<homework_slug> — no /course/
prefix and no trailing slash. Check courses/urls.py before guessing; a wrong
path returns a 404 page that greps as "no output" and looks like a failed feature.
Authenticating in a browser
Login is allauth OAuth only — there is no username/password form to fill, so
Playwright can't log in through the UI. Mint a session cookie instead:
from django.contrib.sessions.backends.db import SessionStore
from django.contrib.auth import SESSION_KEY, BACKEND_SESSION_KEY, HASH_SESSION_KEY
s = SessionStore()
s[SESSION_KEY] = str(user.pk)
s[BACKEND_SESSION_KEY] = "allauth.account.auth_backends.AuthenticationBackend"
s[HASH_SESSION_KEY] = user.get_session_auth_hash()
s.create()
ModelBackend is commented out in AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS — using it makes the
session silently unauthenticated. Then ctx.add_cookies([{"name": "sessionid", "value": key, "domain": "127.0.0.1", "path": "/"}]).
Gotchas
- Homework/project open-vs-closed is driven by
state (OPEN/CLOSED/SCORED),
not by due_date. A passed deadline alone does not close a form.
- Submitting a homework URL performs a real network check on the repo. Use a
genuine public repo (e.g.
https://github.com/DataTalksClub/llm-zoomcamp);
fake URLs are rejected with "does not exist".
- "Deadline passed" / time-left text is rendered client-side by
courses/static/time_left.js, so it will not appear in curl output — use a
browser to see it.
- Badges use
app-badge-upper (CSS uppercase), so Playwright inner_text()
returns "NOT SUBMITTED" while the template source says "Not submitted".
- Playwright + chromium are already installed (
uv run python, ~/.cache/ms-playwright).
