Installation

Process

Each of the following steps needs to be configured for the Debug Toolbar to be fully functional.

Warning

The Debug Toolbar does not currently support Django’s asynchronous views.

1. Install the Package

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

$ python -m 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:

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

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

2. Check for Prerequisites

The Debug Toolbar requires two things from core Django. These are already configured in Django’s default startproject template, so in most cases you will already have these set up.

First, ensure that 'django.contrib.staticfiles' is in your INSTALLED_APPS setting, and configured properly:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
    # ...
]

STATIC_URL = "static/"

Second, ensure that your TEMPLATES setting contains a DjangoTemplates backend whose APP_DIRS options is set to True:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "APP_DIRS": True,
        # ...
    }
]

3. Install the App

Add "debug_toolbar" to your INSTALLED_APPS setting:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "debug_toolbar",
    # ...
]

4. Add the URLs

Add django-debug-toolbar’s URLs to your project’s URLconf:

from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    # ...
    path("__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.

5. Add the Middleware

The Debug Toolbar is mostly implemented in a middleware. Add it to your MIDDLEWARE setting:

MIDDLEWARE = [
    # ...
    "debug_toolbar.middleware.DebugToolbarMiddleware",
    # ...
]

Warning

The order of MIDDLEWARE 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.

6. Configure Internal IPs

The Debug Toolbar is shown only if your IP address is listed in Django’s INTERNAL_IPS setting. This means that for local development, you must add "127.0.0.1" to INTERNAL_IPS. You’ll need to create this setting if it doesn’t already exist in your settings module:

INTERNAL_IPS = [
    # ...
    "127.0.0.1",
    # ...
]

You can change the logic of determining whether or not the Debug Toolbar should be shown with the SHOW_TOOLBAR_CALLBACK option.

Warning

If using Docker the following will set your INTERNAL_IPS correctly in Debug mode:

if DEBUG:
    import socket  # only if you haven't already imported this
    hostname, _, ips = socket.gethostbyname_ex(socket.gethostname())
    INTERNAL_IPS = [ip[: ip.rfind(".")] + ".1" for ip in ips] + ["127.0.0.1", "10.0.2.2"]

Troubleshooting

On some platforms, the Django runserver command may use incorrect content types for static assets. To guess content types, Django relies on the mimetypes module from the Python standard library, which itself relies on the underlying platform’s map files. If you find improper content types for certain files, it is most likely that the platform’s map files are incorrect or need to be updated. This can be achieved, for example, by installing or updating the mailcap package on a Red Hat distribution, mime-support on a Debian distribution, or by editing the keys under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT in the Windows registry.

Cross-Origin Request Blocked

The Debug Toolbar loads a JavaScript module. Typical local development using Django runserver is not impacted. However, if your application server and static files server are at different origins, you may see CORS errors in your browser’s development console:

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at http://localhost/static/debug_toolbar/js/toolbar.js. (Reason: CORS header ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ missing).

Or

Access to script at 'http://localhost/static/debug_toolbar/js/toolbar.js' from origin 'http://localhost:8000' has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.

To resolve, configure your static files server to add the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header with the origin of the application server. For example, if your application server is at http://example.com, and your static files are served by NGINX, add:

add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin http://example.com;

And for Apache:

Header add Access-Control-Allow-Origin http://example.com

Django Channels & Async

The Debug Toolbar currently doesn’t support Django Channels or async projects. If you are using Django channels are having issues getting panels to load, please review the documentation for the configuration option RENDER_PANELS.

HTMX

If you’re using HTMX to boost a page you will need to add the following event handler to your code:

{% if debug %}
    if (typeof window.htmx !== "undefined") {
        htmx.on("htmx:afterSettle", function(detail) {
            if (
                typeof window.djdt !== "undefined"
                && detail.target instanceof HTMLBodyElement
            ) {
                djdt.show_toolbar();
            }
        });
    }
{% endif %}

The use of {% if debug %} requires django.template.context_processors.debug be included in the 'context_processors' option of the TEMPLATES setting. Django’s default configuration includes this context processor.