=================================
The Django source code repository
=================================

When deploying a Django application into a real production environment, you
will almost always want to use `an official packaged release of Django`_.

However, if you'd like to try out in-development code from an upcoming release
or contribute to the development of Django, you'll need to obtain a clone of
Django's source code repository.

This document covers the way the code repository is laid out and how to work
with and find things in it.

.. _an official packaged release of Django: https://www.djangoproject.com/download/

High-level overview
===================

The Django source code repository uses `Git`_ to track changes to the code
over time, so you'll need a copy of the Git client (a program called ``git``)
on your computer, and you'll want to familiarize yourself with the basics of
how Git works.

Git's website offers downloads for various operating systems. The site also
contains vast amounts of `documentation`_.

The Django Git repository is located online at `github.com/django/django
<https://github.com/django/django>`_. It contains the full source code for all
Django releases, which you can browse online.

The Git repository includes several `branches`_:

* ``main`` contains the main in-development code which will become
  the next packaged release of Django. This is where most development
  activity is focused.

* ``stable/A.B.x`` are the branches where release preparation work happens.
  They are also used for bugfix and security releases which occur as necessary
  after the initial release of a feature version.

The Git repository also contains `tags`_. These are the exact revisions from
which packaged Django releases were produced, since version 1.0.

A number of tags also exist under the ``archive/`` prefix for :ref:`archived
work<archived-feature-development-work>`.

The source code for the `Djangoproject.com <https://www.djangoproject.com/>`_
website can be found at `github.com/django/djangoproject.com
<https://github.com/django/djangoproject.com>`_.

.. _Git: https://git-scm.com/
.. _documentation: https://git-scm.com/doc
.. _branches: https://github.com/django/django/branches
.. _tags: https://github.com/django/django/tags

The main branch
===============

If you'd like to try out the in-development code for the next release of
Django, or if you'd like to contribute to Django by fixing bugs or developing
new features, you'll want to get the code from the main branch.

.. note::

   Prior to March 2021, the main branch was called ``master``.

Note that this will get *all* of Django: in addition to the top-level
``django`` module containing Python code, you'll also get a copy of Django's
documentation, test suite, packaging scripts and other miscellaneous bits.
Django's code will be present in your clone as a directory named
``django``.

To try out the in-development code with your own applications, place the
directory containing your clone on your Python import path. Then ``import``
statements which look for Django will find the ``django`` module within your
clone.

If you're going to be working on Django's code (say, to fix a bug or
develop a new feature), you can probably stop reading here and move
over to :doc:`the documentation for contributing to Django
</internals/contributing/index>`, which covers things like the preferred
coding style and how to generate and submit a patch.

Stable branches
===============

Django uses branches to prepare for releases of Django. Each major release
series has its own stable branch.

These branches can be found in the repository as ``stable/A.B.x``
branches and will be created right after the first alpha is tagged.

For example, immediately after *Django 1.5 alpha 1* was tagged, the branch
``stable/1.5.x`` was created and all further work on preparing the code for the
final 1.5 release was done there.

These branches also provide bugfix and security support as described in
:ref:`supported-versions-policy`.

For example, after the release of Django 1.5, the branch ``stable/1.5.x``
receives only fixes for security and critical stability bugs, which are
eventually released as Django 1.5.1 and so on, ``stable/1.4.x`` receives only
security and data loss fixes, and ``stable/1.3.x`` no longer receives any
updates.

.. admonition:: Historical information

    This policy for handling ``stable/A.B.x`` branches was adopted starting
    with the Django 1.5 release cycle.

    Previously, these branches weren't created until right after the releases
    and the stabilization work occurred on the main repository branch. Thus,
    no new feature development work for the next release of Django could be
    committed until the final release happened.

    For example, shortly after the release of Django 1.3 the branch
    ``stable/1.3.x`` was created. Official support for that release has expired,
    and so it no longer receives direct maintenance from the Django project.
    However, that and all other similarly named branches continue to exist, and
    interested community members have occasionally used them to provide
    unofficial support for old Django releases.

Tags
====

Each Django release is tagged and signed by the releaser.

The tags can be found on GitHub's `tags`_ page.

.. _tags: https://github.com/django/django/tags

.. _archived-feature-development-work:

Archived feature-development work
---------------------------------

.. admonition:: Historical information

    Since Django moved to Git in 2012, anyone can clone the repository and
    create their own branches, alleviating the need for official branches in
    the source code repository.

    The following section is mostly useful if you're exploring the repository's
    history, for example if you're trying to understand how some features were
    designed.

Feature-development branches tend by their nature to be temporary. Some
produce successful features which are merged back into Django's main branch to
become part of an official release, but others do not; in either case, there
comes a time when the branch is no longer being actively worked on by any
developer. At this point the branch is considered closed.

Django used to be maintained with the Subversion revision control system, that
has no standard way of indicating this. As a workaround, branches of Django
which are closed and no longer maintained were moved into ``attic``.

A number of tags exist under the ``archive/`` prefix to maintain a reference to
this and other work of historical interest.

The following tags under the ``archive/attic/`` prefix reference the tip of
branches whose code eventually became part of Django itself:

* ``boulder-oracle-sprint``: Added support for Oracle databases to
  Django's object-relational mapper. This has been part of Django
  since the 1.0 release.

* ``gis``: Added support for geographic/spatial queries to Django's
  object-relational mapper. This has been part of Django since the 1.0
  release, as the bundled application ``django.contrib.gis``.

* ``i18n``: Added :doc:`internationalization support </topics/i18n/index>` to
  Django. This has been part of Django since the 0.90 release.

* ``magic-removal``: A major refactoring of both the internals and
  public APIs of Django's object-relational mapper. This has been part
  of Django since the 0.95 release.

* ``multi-auth``: A refactoring of :doc:`Django's bundled
  authentication framework </topics/auth/index>` which added support for
  :ref:`authentication backends <authentication-backends>`. This has
  been part of Django since the 0.95 release.

* ``new-admin``: A refactoring of :doc:`Django's bundled
  administrative application </ref/contrib/admin/index>`. This became part of
  Django as of the 0.91 release, but was superseded by another
  refactoring (see next listing) prior to the Django 1.0 release.

* ``newforms-admin``: The second refactoring of Django's bundled
  administrative application. This became part of Django as of the 1.0
  release, and is the basis of the current incarnation of
  ``django.contrib.admin``.

* ``queryset-refactor``: A refactoring of the internals of Django's
  object-relational mapper. This became part of Django as of the 1.0
  release.

* ``unicode``: A refactoring of Django's internals to consistently use
  Unicode-based strings in most places within Django and Django
  applications. This became part of Django as of the 1.0 release.

Additionally, the following tags under the ``archive/attic/`` prefix reference
the tips of branches that were closed, but whose code was never merged into
Django, and the features they aimed to implement were never finished:

* ``full-history``

* ``generic-auth``

* ``multiple-db-support``

* ``per-object-permissions``

* ``schema-evolution``

* ``schema-evolution-ng``

* ``search-api``

* ``sqlalchemy``

Finally, under the ``archive/`` prefix, the repository contains
``soc20XX/<project>`` tags referencing the tip of branches that were used by
students who worked on Django during the 2009 and 2010 Google Summer of Code
programs.
