Creating Custom Command

To create a custom command in Django, you first need to create an app. Click here to see how to create an app.

After you create an app inside your project, create a management folder inside the app directory and commands folder inside the management folder. Inside the commands folder create a python file with the name, you want to give to your command. For example, if you want to create a command named my_command, then the name of the python file will be my_command.py You should edit the my_command.py file as follows to create a command:

from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand

class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = 'A Custom Management command'

    def handle(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.stdout.write(self.style.SUCCESS('Custom command executed successfully'))

• BaseCommand is a base class provided by Django for creating custom management commands.
• The help attribute is a short description of what the custom command does. It provides information that can be displayed to users when they run python manage.py help <command_name> to get help on the command.
• The handle method is the entry point for your custom command's logic. When you run the custom command, Django will invoke this method. It accepts two arguments, *args and **kwargs.
• Inside the handle method, the self.stdout.write method is used to display output to the console.

You can run your command as follows :

python manage.py my_command

Users can know about your command using --help :

python manage.py my_command --help

The following command would give an output like this :

usage: manage.py my_command [-h] [--version] [-v {0,1,2,3}] [--settings SETTINGS] [--pythonpath PYTHONPATH]
                            [--traceback] [--no-color] [--force-color] [--skip-checks]

A Custom Management command

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             Show program's version number and exit.
  -v {0,1,2,3}, --verbosity {0,1,2,3}
                        Verbosity level; 0=minimal output, 1=normal output, 2=verbose output, 3=very verbose output
  --settings SETTINGS   The Python path to a settings module, e.g. "myproject.settings.main". If this isn't provided,
                        the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable will be used.
  --pythonpath PYTHONPATH
                        A directory to add to the Python path, e.g. "/home/djangoprojects/myproject".
  --traceback           Raise on CommandError exceptions.
  --no-color            Don't colorize the command output.
  --force-color         Force colorization of the command output.
  --skip-checks         Skip system checks.

Also, you can pass arguments in your command as follows :

class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = 'A Custom Management command'

    def add_arguments(self, parser):
        parser.add_argument('--my_option', type=int, help='An example option')

    def handle(self, *args, **kwargs):
        my_option_value = kwargs['my_option']
        self.stdout.write(self.style.SUCCESS(f'Custom command executed with option: {my_option_value}'))

This code accepts an argument named my_option of type int.

Now the argument can be passed while executing the command as follows :

python manage.py my_command --my_option 10

Now if you give help, you will be able to see the my_option in the arguments as well.

usage: manage.py my_command [-h] [--my_option MY_OPTION] [--version] [-v {0,1,2,3}] [--settings SETTINGS]
                            [--pythonpath PYTHONPATH] [--traceback] [--no-color] [--force-color] [--skip-checks]

A Custom Management command

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --my_option MY_OPTION
                        An example option
  --version             Show program's version number and exit.
  -v {0,1,2,3}, --verbosity {0,1,2,3}
                        Verbosity level; 0=minimal output, 1=normal output, 2=verbose output, 3=very verbose output
  --settings SETTINGS   The Python path to a settings module, e.g. "myproject.settings.main". If this isn't provided,
                        the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable will be used.
  --pythonpath PYTHONPATH
                        A directory to add to the Python path, e.g. "/home/djangoprojects/myproject".
  --traceback           Raise on CommandError exceptions.
  --no-color            Don't colorize the command output.
  --force-color         Force colorization of the command output.
  --skip-checks         Skip system checks.