Installation

Getting the code

The recommended way to install the Debug Toolbar is via pip:

$ pip install django-debug-toolbar

If you aren’t familiar with pip, you may also obtain a copy of the debug_toolbar directory and add it to your Python path.

To test an upcoming release, you can install the in-development version instead with the following command:

$ pip install -e git+https://github.com/django-debug-toolbar/django-debug-toolbar.git#egg=django-debug-toolbar

Quick setup

Make sure that 'django.contrib.staticfiles' is set up properly and add 'debug_toolbar.apps.DebugToolbarConfig' (Django ≥ 1.7) or 'debug_toolbar' (Django < 1.7) to your INSTALLED_APPS setting:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # ...
    # If you're using Django 1.7.x or later
    'debug_toolbar.apps.DebugToolbarConfig',
    # If you're using Django 1.6.x or earlier
    'debug_toolbar',
)

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

For a simple Django project, that’s all you need!

The Debug Toolbar will automatically adjust a few settings when you start the development server, provided the DEBUG setting is True.

If you’re upgrading from a previous version, you should review the change log and look for specific upgrade instructions.

If the automatic setup doesn’t work for your project, if you want to learn what it does, or if you prefer defining your settings explicitly, read below.

Note

The automatic setup relies on debug_toolbar.models being imported when the server starts. Django doesn’t provide a better hook to execute code during the start-up sequence. This works with manage.py runserver because it validates models before serving requests.

Warning

The automatic setup imports your project’s URLconf in order to add the Debug Toolbar’s URLs. This may trigger circular imports, for instance when the URLconf imports views that import models. If the development server crashes with a long stack trace after hitting an ImportError or an ImproperlyConfigured exception, follow the explicit setup instructions.

Explicit setup

First, tell the toolbar not to adjust your settings automatically by adding this line in your settings module:

DEBUG_TOOLBAR_PATCH_SETTINGS = False

URLconf

Add the Debug Toolbar’s URLs to your project’s URLconf as follows:

from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls import include, patterns, url

if settings.DEBUG:
    import debug_toolbar
    urlpatterns += patterns('',
        url(r'^__debug__/', include(debug_toolbar.urls)),
    )

This example uses the __debug__ prefix, but you can use any prefix that doesn’t clash with your application’s URLs. Note the lack of quotes around debug_toolbar.urls.

If the URLs aren’t included in your root URLconf, the Debug Toolbar automatically appends them.

Middleware

The Debug Toolbar is mostly implemented in a middleware. Enable it in your settings module as follows:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    # ...
    'debug_toolbar.middleware.DebugToolbarMiddleware',
    # ...
)

The order of MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES is important. You should include the Debug Toolbar middleware as early as possible in the list. However, it must come after any other middleware that encodes the response’s content, such as GZipMiddleware.

If MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES doesn’t contain the middleware, the Debug Toolbar automatically adds it the beginning of the list.

Internal IPs

The Debug Toolbar is shown only if your IP is listed in the INTERNAL_IPS setting. (You can change this logic with the SHOW_TOOLBAR_CALLBACK option.) For local development, you should add '127.0.0.1' to INTERNAL_IPS.

If INTERNAL_IPS is empty, the Debug Toolbar automatically sets it to '127.0.0.1' and '::1'.