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