This project is open source and community driven. As such we encourage code contributions of all kinds. Some areas you can contribute in:
- Improve the stubs
- Sync stubs with the latest version of Django
- Improve plugin code and extend its capabilities
- Write tests
- Update dependencies
- Fix and remove things from our
scripts/stubtest/allowlist_todo.txt
If you want to start working on this project, you will need to get familiar with python typings. The Mypy documentation offers an excellent resource for this, as well as the python official documentation:
Additionally, the following resources might be useful:
- How to write custom mypy plugins
- Typechecking Django and DRF guide
- Testing mypy stubs, plugins, and types guide
- Awesome Python Typing list
As a first step you will need to fork this repository and clone your fork locally. In order to be able to continuously sync your fork with the origin repository's master branch, you will need to set up an upstream master. To do so follow this official github guide.
The test suite requires some system libraries that Django itself treats as optional.
This project depends on mysqlclient, which needs MySQL/MariaDB C client libraries to build.
Install them for your platform following the
mysqlclient install guide.
For Debian/Ubuntu, the django-docker-box packages list
is also a useful reference.
GDAL and GEOS are needed to pass all tests (2 GIS-related tests require them). See the Django documentation on installing geospatial libraries. If you're not working on GIS-related stubs, you can skip GDAL/GEOS — the 2 failing tests won't affect other contributions.
macOS Note: Homebrew installs GDAL/GEOS to
/opt/homebrew(Apple Silicon) or/usr/local(Intel), which are not in the default library search path. The GIS tests may fail unless you create symlinks:sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/gdal/lib/libgdal.dylib /usr/local/lib/libgdal.dylib sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/geos/lib/libgeos_c.dylib /usr/local/lib/libgeos_c.dylib
We use uv to manage our dev dependencies. To install it, see their installation guide
Once it's done, simply run the following command to automatically setup a virtual environment and install dev dependencies:
uv sync
source .venv/bin/activateFinally, install the pre-commit hooks. Pre-commit must be installed separately
(see installation options), or you can use uvx pre-commit to
run it without installation:
pre-commit installWe use mypy, pytest, ruff, and black for quality control. ruff and black are executed using pre-commit when you make a commit.
To ensure there are not formatting or typing issues in the entire repository you can run:
pre-commit run --all-filesNOTE: This command will not only lint but also modify files - so make sure to commit whatever changes you've made before hand. You can also run pre-commit per file or for a specific path, simply replace "--all-files" with a target (see this guide for more info).
To execute the unit tests, simply run:
uv run pytest -n autoIf you get some unexpected results or want to be sure that tests run is not affected by previous one, remove mypy cache:
rm -r .mypy_cacheRun ./scripts/stubtest.sh to test that stubs and sources are in-line.
We have some special files to allow errors:
scripts/stubtest/allowlist.txtwhere we store things that we really don't care about: hacks, django internal utility modules, things that are handled by our plugin, things that are not representable by type system, etcscripts/stubtest/allowlist_todo.txtwhere we store all errors there are right now. Basically, this is a TODO list: we need to work through this list and fix things (or move entries to realallowlist.txt). In the end, ideally we can remove this file.scripts/stubtest/allowlist_todo_django52.txtwhere we store new errors from the Django 5.0 to 5.2 upgrade. This is an extra TODO list.
You might also want to disable incremental mode while working on stubtest changes.
This mode leads to several known problems (stubs do not show up or have strange errors).
The workflow for contributions is fairly simple:
- Fork and set up the repository as in the previous step.
- Create a local branch.
- Make whatever changes you want to contribute.
- Ensure your contribution passes linting and tests.
- Make a pull request with an adequate description.
As Django uses a lot of the more dynamic features of Python (i.e. metaobjects), statically typing it requires heavy use of generics.
Unfortunately, the syntax for generics is also valid Python syntax.
For instance, the statement class SomeClass(SuperType[int]) implicitly translates to class SomeClass(SuperType.__class_getitem__(int)).
If SuperType doesn't define the __class_getitem__ method, this causes a runtime error, even if the code passes type checking.
When adding a new generic class, or changing an existing class to use generics, run a quick test to see if it causes a runtime error.
If it does, please add the new generic class to the _need_generic list in the django_stubs_ext.patch module.
We only add hints for private attributes when it has some demonstrated real-world use case. That means from a third-party package or some well described snippet for a project. This rule helps us avoid tying in too closely to Django’s undocumented internals.
-
Open a pull request that updates
pyproject.toml,ext/pyproject.tomlandREADME.md(anyone can open this PR, not just maintainers):-
Version number
major.minor.patchis formed as follows:major.minorversion must match newest supported Django release.patchis sequentially increasing for each stubs release. Reset to0ifmajor.minorwas updated. -
Update the
version =value within[project]section in bothpyproject.tomlfiles. The versions must be in sync. -
Update
django-stubs-ext>=dependency in rootpyproject.tomlto the same version number. -
Run
uv lockto update lockfile -
Add a new row at the top of 'Version compatibility' table in README.md.
-
Use pull request title "Version x.y.z release" by convention.
-
Add the correct classifiers to
classifiers =if support is added for a new Python or Django version
-
-
Ensure the CI succeeds. A maintainer must merge this PR. If it's just a version bump, no need to wait for a second maintainer's approval.
-
A maintainer must сreate a new GitHub release:
- Under "Choose a tag" enter the new version number. Do not use
vprefix. - Click "Generate release notes".
- Look for merged PRs with the 'release notes reminder' label and move them to a separate section at the top, so that they stand out. Remove the label from PRs.
- Delete all release notes lines containing
by @pre-commit-ciorby @dependabot, as these are irrelevant for our users.
- Under "Choose a tag" enter the new version number. Do not use
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Once you feel brave enough, click "Publish release".
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Check that the release workflow succeeds.