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Guide: seed a demo store

Goal: a populated database you can click through in the admin or show in a demo, generated the same way every time.

1. Seed the whole project

python manage.py seeddata --count 20 --seed 42

--seed 42 means you (and your teammates) get the identical dataset every run. Parents are seeded before children automatically, and foreign keys reuse those parents, so you get realistic cardinality rather than one author per book.

2. Tune the amounts per model

Some tables want more rows than others. Seed them individually, largest parents first:

python manage.py seeddata shop.Author --count 30 --seed 42
python manage.py seeddata shop.Category --count 12 --seed 42
python manage.py seeddata shop.Book --count 300 --seed 42   # reuses authors & categories

Or capture it as a reusable SeedPlan so it's one command for everyone:

# scripts/seed_demo.py
from django_data_seed import SeedPlan

plan = SeedPlan(defaults={"seed": 42})
plan.add("shop.Author", count=30)
plan.add("shop.Category", count=12)
plan.add("shop.Book", count=300)
plan.run()

python manage.py shell -c "import scripts.seed_demo"

3. Browse it

python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py runserver
# open http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/

4. Reset when you want fresh data

# start over
rm -f db.sqlite3 && python manage.py migrate
python manage.py seeddata --count 20 --seed 42

Tips

  • Use --locale de_DE (or another locale) to demo a localised store.
  • Use --dry-run first to eyeball the seed order and row counts.
  • --strategy mix gives more natural parent/child spread than pure reuse.