Configuration¶

Everything about a generated project is chosen at generation time through the interactive prompts. The choices are baked into the generated settings, requirements, and config files — no flags to memorize.

Generation options¶

Option	Choices	Default	Notes
Docker	yes / no	yes	Adds `Dockerfile`, `docker-compose.yml`, `entrypoint.sh`, `.dockerignore`
PostgreSQL	yes / no	yes	`no` falls back to SQLite
PostgreSQL version	15, 16, 17, 18	18	Applied to the compose file
Cloud provider	none, AWS, Azure, GCP, Render, Railway, PythonAnywhere, Fly.io, Dokku, Heroku	none	Adds deployment guidance in the generated README
Storage provider	local, AWS, GCP, Azure, Cloudflare R2	local	Wires django-storages backends for media files
Email provider	none, SendGrid, Mailgun, SES, Postmark	none	See Email providers
Async support	yes / no	no	Generates `asgi.py` and sets `ASGI_APPLICATION`
Django REST Framework	yes / no	yes	Adds DRF + Token auth + CORS + API app
Celery	yes / no	full: yes · api-only: no	Adds Celery with a Redis broker (see Celery)
Sentry	yes / no	full: yes · api-only: no	Error tracking + performance monitoring
Stripe	yes / no	no	Adds djstripe + a payments app
Frontend pipeline	none, webpack, vite, parcel	full: vite · api-only: none	Generates `package.json` (+ `vite.config.js` for Vite)
CI tool	none, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Travis, CircleCI	full: GitHub Actions · api-only: none	See CI integration

Full mode vs API-only

In full mode projects include the frontend (templates + static files) and default to Celery/Sentry/CI on. In API-only mode (--api-only) only a backend is generated; DRF is forced on, the frontend pipeline is forced off, and Celery/Sentry/CI default to off. See API-Only Projects.

Generated settings layout¶

Settings are split across three modules:

settings/base.py — shared configuration
settings/development.py — local development overrides
settings/production.py — production overrides

API-only projects

API-only projects keep the same three-module settings layout and reuse the same templates. The API-only branch of settings/base.py enables DRF with JWT auth, drf-spectacular schema docs, and dj-rest-auth; settings/development.py skips the frontend debug tooling (django-debug-toolbar, django-extensions) that has no use in a headless backend.

Environment variables¶

Generated projects read configuration from environment variables via python-decouple. Copy .env.example to .env and edit the values you need.

Core Django¶

Variable	Default	Description
`SECRET_KEY`	`django-insecure-change-me-in-production`	Always override in production.
`DEBUG`	`True`	Set to `False` in production.
`ALLOWED_HOSTS`	`localhost,127.0.0.1`	Comma-separated allowlist of hostnames.
`DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL`	`noreply@<project>.com`	Sender address for outgoing mail.

Database (when PostgreSQL is enabled)¶

Variable	Default
`DB_NAME`	`<project_name>`
`DB_USER`	`postgres`
`DB_PASSWORD`	(empty)
`DB_HOST`	`localhost`
`DB_PORT`	`5432`

Celery (when enabled)¶

Variable	Default
`CELERY_BROKER_URL`	`redis://localhost:6379/0`
`CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND`	`redis://localhost:6379/0`

DRF / CORS (when enabled)¶

Variable	Default
`CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS`	(empty) — comma-separated origins

Sentry (when enabled)¶

Variable	Default
`SENTRY_DSN`	(empty)
`ENVIRONMENT`	`development`

Stripe (when enabled)¶

Variable	Default
`STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY`	—
`STRIPE_SECRET_KEY`	—
`DJSTRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET`	—

Storage providers¶

AWS S3Cloudflare R2Google Cloud StorageAzure Blob Storage

Variable	Default
`AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID`	—
`AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`	—
`AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME`	—
`AWS_S3_REGION_NAME`	`us-east-1`
`AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN`	(empty)
`MEDIA_URL`	`https://<domain>/media/`

Variable	Default
`AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID`	R2 access key
`AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`	R2 secret key
`AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME`	R2 bucket
`AWS_S3_ENDPOINT_URL`	e.g. `https://<account-id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com`
`AWS_S3_REGION_NAME`	`auto`

Variable	Default
`GCS_BUCKET_NAME`	—
`GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS`	path to service-account JSON

Variable	Default
`AZURE_ACCOUNT_NAME`	—
`AZURE_ACCOUNT_KEY`	—
`AZURE_CONTAINER`	—

Email providers¶

Variable	Used by
`SENDGRID_API_KEY`	SendGrid
`MAILGUN_USERNAME` / `MAILGUN_PASSWORD`	Mailgun

Non-interactive generation¶

The CLI is intentionally interactive — the only flag-driven choices are --output-dir and --api-only. To script generation non-interactively, pipe answers into the prompt, for example:

printf 'my_project\ny\ny\n18\nnone\nlocal\nnone\nn\ny\ny\ny\nn\nvite\ngithub-actions\ny\n' \
  | modern-django-starter create

Warning

Prompt order is stable but not part of the public API — it may change between releases. Prefer the interactive flow for anything important.