How to add initial data to your Django project?

1- Run this command and change myapp to your app name:

python manage.py makemigrations --empty myapp

This command will create an empty migration file inside your app migrations directory, it will look like the following.

# Generated by Django 4.2.2 on 2023-06-15 10:15

from django.db import migrations

class Migration(migrations.Migration):
    dependencies = [
        ("myapp", "0001_initial"),
    ]

    operations = []

2- Write your initial data as a list of dicts.

INITIAL_DATA = [
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Sedan",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Cargo van",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "bike",
        "label": "Moped Bike",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "bike",
        "label": "E-Bike",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
]

3- Create a function called load_initial_data to add the data into the database

def load_initial_data(apps, schema_editor):
    vehicle_types_model = apps.get_model('myapp', 'VehicleType')
    for data in INITIAL_DATA:
        vehicle_types_model.objects.create(**data)

Let me explain what this function does

vehicle_types_model = apps.get_model('myapp', 'VehicleType')

at this line, we are identifying the app name and the model name so you will replace myapp with your app_name and VehicleType with your model_name

for data in INITIAL_DATA:
        vehicle_types_model.objects.create(**data)

This for loop is to loop over the INITIAL_DATA and add it into the database

3- Add this item to the operations list

    operations = [
        migrations.RunPython(load_initial_data)
    ]

This command runs the load_initial_data function when you run your migration file

The final file will look like the following

# Generated by Django 4.2.2 on 2023-06-15 10:15

from django.db import migrations

INITIAL_DATA = [
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Sedan",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "SUV",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Minivan",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Cargo van",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Pickup truck",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Box truck",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "car",
        "label": "Other",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "bike",
        "label": "Moped Bike",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "bike",
        "label": "E-Bike",
        "need_license_plate": True,
    },
    {
        "parent_type": "bike",
        "label": "Manual Bike",
        "need_license_plate": False,
    },
]


def load_initial_data(apps, schema_editor):
    vehicle_types_model = apps.get_model('vehicles', 'VehicleType')
    for data in INITIAL_DATA:
        vehicle_types_model.objects.create(**data)


class Migration(migrations.Migration):
    dependencies = [
        ("myapp", "0001_initial"),
    ]

    operations = [
        migrations.RunPython(load_initial_data)
    ]

Thanks for reading 😉

AHMED ELKHAYYAT