Welcome to Django Components

django-components combines Django's templating system with the modularity seen in modern frontend frameworks like Vue or React.

With django-components you can support Django projects small and large without leaving the Django ecosystem.

Quickstart¤

A component in django-components can be as simple as a Django template and Python code to declare the component:

components/calendar/calendar.html

<div class="calendar">
  Today's date is <span>{{ date }}</span>
</div>

components/calendar/calendar.py

from django_components import Component

class Calendar(Component):
    template_file = "calendar.html"

Or a combination of Django template, Python, CSS, and Javascript:

components/calendar/calendar.html

<div class="calendar">
  Today's date is <span>{{ date }}</span>
</div>

components/calendar/calendar.css

.calendar {
  width: 200px;
  background: pink;
}

components/calendar/calendar.js

document.querySelector(".calendar").onclick = () => {
  alert("Clicked calendar!");
};

components/calendar/calendar.py

from django_components import Component

class Calendar(Component):
    template_file = "calendar.html"
    js_file = "calendar.js"
    css_file = "calendar.css"

    def get_context_data(self, date):
        return {"date": date}

Use the component like this:

{% component "calendar" date="2024-11-06" %}{% endcomponent %}

And this is what gets rendered:

<div class="calendar-component">
  Today's date is <span>2024-11-06</span>
</div>

Read on to learn about all the exciting details and configuration possibilities!

(If you instead prefer to jump right into the code, check out the example project)

Features¤

Modern and modular UI¤

Create self-contained, reusable UI elements.
Each component can include its own HTML, CSS, and JS, or additional third-party JS and CSS.
HTML, CSS, and JS can be defined on the component class, or loaded from files.

from django_components import Component

@register("calendar")
class Calendar(Component):
    template = """
        <div class="calendar">
            Today's date is
            <span>{{ date }}</span>
        </div>
    """

    css = """
        .calendar {
            width: 200px;
            background: pink;
        }
    """

    js = """
        document.querySelector(".calendar")
            .addEventListener("click", () => {
                alert("Clicked calendar!");
            });
    """

    # Additional JS and CSS
    class Media:
        js = ["https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/htmx.org@2.1.1/dist/htmx.min.js"]
        css = ["bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css"]

    # Variables available in the template
    def get_context_data(self, date):
        return {
            "date": date
        }

Composition with slots¤

Render components inside templates with {% component %} tag.
Compose them with {% slot %} and {% fill %} tags.
Vue-like slot system, including scoped slots.

{% component "Layout"
    bookmarks=bookmarks
    breadcrumbs=breadcrumbs
%}
    {% fill "header" %}
        <div class="flex justify-between gap-x-12">
            <div class="prose">
                <h3>{{ project.name }}</h3>
            </div>
            <div class="font-semibold text-gray-500">
                {{ project.start_date }} - {{ project.end_date }}
            </div>
        </div>
    {% endfill %}

    {# Access data passed to `{% slot %}` with `data` #}
    {% fill "tabs" data="tabs_data" %}
        {% component "TabItem" header="Project Info" %}
            {% component "ProjectInfo"
                project=project
                project_tags=project_tags
                attrs:class="py-5"
                attrs:width=tabs_data.width
            / %}
        {% endcomponent %}
    {% endfill %}
{% endcomponent %}

Extended template tags¤

django-components extends Django's template tags syntax with:

Literal lists and dictionaries in template tags
Self-closing tags {% mytag / %}
Multi-line template tags
Spread operator ... to dynamically pass args or kwargs into the template tag
Nested template tags like "{{ first_name }} {{ last_name }}"
Flat definition of dictionary keys attr:key=val

{% component "table"
    ...default_attrs
    title="Friend list for {{ user.name }}"
    headers=["Name", "Age", "Email"]
    data=[
        {
            "name": "John"|upper,
            "age": 30|add:1,
            "email": "john@example.com",
            "hobbies": ["reading"],
        },
        {
            "name": "Jane"|upper,
            "age": 25|add:1,
            "email": "jane@example.com",
            "hobbies": ["reading", "coding"],
        },
    ],
    attrs:class="py-4 ma-2 border-2 border-gray-300 rounded-md"
/ %}

Granular HTML attributes¤

Use the {% html_attrs %} template tag to render HTML attributes. It supports:

Defining attributes as dictionaries
Defining attributes as keyword arguments
Merging attributes from multiple sources
Boolean attributes
Appending attributes
Removing attributes
Defining default attributes

<div
    {% html_attrs
        attrs
        defaults:class="default-class"
        class="extra-class"
    %}
>

{% html_attrs %} offers a Vue-like granular control over class and style HTML attributes, where you can use a dictionary to manage each class name or style property separately.

{% html_attrs
    class="foo bar"
    class={"baz": True, "foo": False}
    class="extra"
%}

{% html_attrs
    style="text-align: center; background-color: blue;"
    style={"background-color": "green", "color": None, "width": False}
    style="position: absolute; height: 12px;"
%}

HTML fragment support¤

django-components makes integration with HTMX, AlpineJS or jQuery easy by allowing components to be rendered as HTML fragments:

Components's JS and CSS is loaded automatically when the fragment is inserted into the DOM.
Expose components as views with get, post, put, patch, delete methods

# components/calendar/calendar.py
@register("calendar")
class Calendar(Component):
    template_file = "calendar.html"

    def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        page = request.GET.get("page", 1)
        return self.render_to_response(
            kwargs={
                "page": page,
            }
        )

    def get_context_data(self, page):
        return {
            "page": page,
        }

# urls.py
path("calendar/", Calendar.as_view()),

Type hints¤

Opt-in to type hints by defining types for component's args, kwargs, slots, and more:

from typing import NotRequired, Tuple, TypedDict, SlotContent, SlotFunc

ButtonArgs = Tuple[int, str]

class ButtonKwargs(TypedDict):
    variable: str
    another: int
    maybe_var: NotRequired[int] # May be omitted

class ButtonData(TypedDict):
    variable: str

class ButtonSlots(TypedDict):
    my_slot: NotRequired[SlotFunc]
    another_slot: SlotContent

ButtonType = Component[ButtonArgs, ButtonKwargs, ButtonSlots, ButtonData, JsData, CssData]

class Button(ButtonType):
    def get_context_data(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.input.args[0]  # int
        self.input.kwargs["variable"]  # str
        self.input.slots["my_slot"]  # SlotFunc[MySlotData]

        return {}  # Error: Key "variable" is missing

When you then call Button.render() or Button.render_to_response(), you will get type hints:

Button.render(
    # Error: First arg must be `int`, got `float`
    args=(1.25, "abc"),
    # Error: Key "another" is missing
    kwargs={
        "variable": "text",
    },
)

Extensions¤

Django-components functionality can be extended with "extensions". Extensions allow for powerful customization and integrations. They can:

Tap into lifecycle events, such as when a component is created, deleted, or registered.
Add new attributes and methods to the components under an extension-specific nested class.

Some of the planned extensions include:

Caching
AlpineJS integration
Storybook integration
Pydantic validation
Component-level benchmarking with asv

Simple testing¤

Write tests for components with @djc_test decorator.
The decorator manages global state, ensuring that tests don't leak.
If using pytest, the decorator allows you to parametrize Django or Components settings.
The decorator also serves as a stand-in for Django's @override_settings.

from djc_test import djc_test

from components.my_component import MyTable

@djc_test
def test_my_table():
    rendered = MyTable.render(
        kwargs={
            "title": "My table",
        },
    )
    assert rendered == "<table>My table</table>"

Handle large projects with ease¤

Components can be infinitely nested.
(Soon) Optimize performance with component-level caching

Debugging features¤

Visual component inspection: Highlight components and slots directly in your browser.
Detailed tracing logs to supply AI-agents with context: The logs include component and slot names and IDs, and their position in the tree.

Component debugging visualization showing slot highlighting

Install and use third-party components from PyPI
Or publish your own "component registry"

Highly customizable - Choose how the components are called in the template (and more):

{% component "calendar" date="2024-11-06" %}
{% endcomponent %}

{% calendar date="2024-11-06" %}
{% endcalendar %}

Other features¤

Vue-like provide / inject system

Performance¤

Our aim is to be at least as fast as Django templates.

As of 0.130, django-components is ~4x slower than Django templates.

	Render time
django	68.9±0.6ms
django-components	259±4ms

See the full performance breakdown for more information.

Release notes¤

Read the Release Notes to see the latest features and fixes.

Community examples¤

One of our goals with django-components is to make it easy to share components between projects. Head over to the Community examples to see some examples.

Contributing and development¤

Get involved or sponsor this project - See here

Running django-components locally for development - See here