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Five-minute quickstart

This guide assumes an existing Django 5.2 or newer project.

1. Install the bridge and a server

The current documentation describes the unreleased 0.2.0 source snapshot. Install a reviewed public commit to use the WebSocket and database lifecycle APIs:

git clone https://github.com/ilysenko/django-fastapi.git
cd django-fastapi
# Record this public commit and use it for repeatable installations.
DJANGO_FASTAPI_COMMIT=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
python -m pip install "django-fastapi @ git+https://github.com/ilysenko/django-fastapi.git@${DJANGO_FASTAPI_COMMIT}"
python -m pip install uvicorn  # or daphne

Publishing source and documentation does not publish a new package to PyPI.

2. Add a FastAPI router

# books/api.py
from fastapi import APIRouter

router = APIRouter(prefix="/books", tags=["books"])


@router.get("/health")
def health() -> dict[str, str]:
    return {"status": "ok"}

The router belongs to the Django app, but it is not added to urlpatterns.

3. Configure FastAPI

# project/settings.py
DJANGO_FASTAPI = {
    "PREFIX": "/api",
    "TITLE": "Example API",
    "ROUTERS": ["books.api.router"],
}

4. Create the combined ASGI entrypoint

# project/asgi.py
import os

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "project.settings")

from django_fastapi import get_django_fastapi_application

application = get_django_fastapi_application()

Keep imports that load Django models after DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is set.

5. Run it

uvicorn project.asgi:application --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

daphne -b 127.0.0.1 -p 8000 project.asgi:application

Open these URLs:

  • http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/books/health
  • http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/docs
  • any existing Django URL at its original path

6. Read the Django user

from typing import Annotated, Any

from fastapi import Depends
from django_fastapi import get_authenticated_user


@router.get("/me")
def me(
    user: Annotated[Any, Depends(get_authenticated_user)],
) -> dict[str, str]:
    return {"username": user.get_username()}

A browser logged in through Django sends the same session cookie to /api. The default resolver returns the same Django user.

Next, read authentication and CSRF and choose the correct ORM calling style.

API discovery settings

The bridge preserves FastAPI's default /docs, /redoc, and /openapi.json endpoints. The bundled deployment examples disable all three explicitly with FASTAPI_KWARGS; remove that override to enable them for local exploration. Use the same options on HTTP and WebSocket apps when discovery should be disabled.