Lithium is a batteries-included Django starter project with everything you need to start coding, including user authentication, static files, default styling, debugging, DRY forms, custom error pages, and more.

This project was formerly known as DjangoX but was renamed to Lithium in November 2024.

• Django 6.1 & Python 3.12+
• Installation via uv or Pip
• User authentication--log in, sign up, password reset--via django-allauth
• Static files configured with Whitenoise
• Styling with Bootstrap v5
• Debugging with django-debug-toolbar
• DRY forms with django-crispy-forms
• Custom 404, 500, and 403 error pages

• Installation
  • uv
  • Pip
• Next Steps
• Contributing
• Support
• License

Lithium requires Python 3.12 or newer and can be installed via uv or Pip. It uses SQLite for local development, so no separate database server is required. To start, clone the repo to your local computer and change into the proper directory.

$ git clone https://github.com/wsvincent/lithium.git
$ cd lithium

You can use uv to create a dedicated virtual environment.

$ uv sync

Then run migrate to configure the initial database. The command createsuperuser will create a new superuser account for accessing the admin. Execute the runserver command to start up the local server.

$ uv run manage.py migrate
$ uv run manage.py createsuperuser
$ uv run manage.py runserver
# Load the site at http://127.0.0.1:8000 or http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin for the admin

To use Pip, create and activate a new virtual environment:

$ python -m venv .venv
$ source .venv/bin/activate

On Windows, activate it with .venv\Scripts\activate instead.

Then install the packages listed in requirements.txt. Run migrate to configure the initial database and createsuperuser to create a new superuser account for accessing the admin. Execute the runserver command to start up the local server.

(.venv) $ pip install -r requirements.txt
(.venv) $ python manage.py migrate
(.venv) $ python manage.py createsuperuser
(.venv) $ python manage.py runserver
# Load the site at http://127.0.0.1:8000 or http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin for the admin

• Add environment variables. There are multiple packages but I personally prefer environs.
• Add gunicorn as the production web server.
• Update MAILERS and connect with a mail provider.
• Make the admin more secure.
• django-allauth supports social authentication if you need that.

I cover all of these steps in tutorials and premium courses over at LearnDjango.com.

Contributions, issues and feature requests are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Give a ⭐️ if this project helped you!

The MIT License