How to deploy a Django app.

The short answer

To deploy a Django app, give your coding agent the sentence below. Antideploy finds Django in your requirements, creates a Postgres database, runs python manage.py migrate before the new version goes live, and starts the app with gunicorn if it is in your requirements. Without gunicorn it uses Django's built-in server and warns you.

What Antideploy detects

• Django. Detected from django in requirements.txt or pyproject.toml.
• The start command. With gunicorn, waitress or uwsgi in your requirements: gunicorn yourproject.wsgi --bind 0.0.0.0:$PORT, where the project name comes from your settings.py. Without one: python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:$PORT, and a warning that this server is meant for demos, not real traffic.
• The database and migrations. Django needs a database, so Antideploy creates Postgres, and runs python manage.py migrate before the new version goes live. A failed migration fails the deploy.
• The port. It starts the app with PORT set.
• The Python version. From .python-version, runtime.txt or requires-python in pyproject.toml.

Settings Django needs

Three settings in settings.py matter online. Django does not read DATABASE_URL by itself.

import os
import dj_database_url

ALLOWED_HOSTS = [".antideploy.app"]
CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS = ["https://*.antideploy.app"]

DATABASES = {
    "default": dj_database_url.config(env="DATABASE_URL", conn_max_age=600),
}

• ALLOWED_HOSTS must include your address, or Django answers every request with an error. Add your own domain too, if you attach one
• CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS needs your https:// address, or form posts are refused
• Add dj-database-url to your requirements, or build the connection from the PG* variables
• Keep SECRET_KEY out of your code. If your code reads SECRET_KEY, Antideploy generates one for you

Static files

Django does not serve its own static files in production. A common way is WhiteNoise: add it to your requirements and middleware, and run collectstatic during your build. Files that people upload belong in a bucket, not on the app's disk.

Step by step

1. Add gunicorn and the database package

   List gunicorn and dj-database-url in requirements.txt.

2. Paste the sentence and approve one link

   Your agent creates the app and the database, writes the connection details into your .env without printing them, and builds against the real database.

3. Deploy and open the link

   Antideploy installs your requirements, runs python manage.py migrate, starts the app and checks that it answers. Your agent tells you the address.