django-pgtrigger

django-pgtrigger helps you write Postgres triggers for your Django models.

Why should I use triggers?

Triggers can solve a variety of complex problems more reliably, performantly, and succinctly than application code. For example,

• Protecting operations on rows or columns (pgtrigger.Protect).
• Making read-only models or fields (pgtrigger.ReadOnly).
• Soft-deleting models (pgtrigger.SoftDelete).
• Snapshotting and tracking model changes (django-pghistory).
• Enforcing field transitions (pgtrigger.FSM).
• Keeping a search vector updated for full-text search (pgtrigger.UpdateSearchVector).
• Building official interfaces (e.g. enforcing use of User.objects.create_user and not User.objects.create).
• Versioning models, mirroring fields, computing unique model hashes, and the list goes on...

All of these examples require no overridden methods, no base models, and no signal handling.

Quick start

Install django-pgtrigger with pip3 install django-pgtrigger and add pgtrigger to settings.INSTALLED_APPS.

pgtrigger.Trigger objects are added to triggers in model Meta. django-pgtrigger comes with several trigger classes, such as pgtrigger.Protect. In the following, we're protecting the model from being deleted:

class ProtectedModel(models.Model):
    """This model cannot be deleted!"""

    class Meta:
        triggers = [
            pgtrigger.Protect(name='protect_deletes', operation=pgtrigger.Delete)
        ]

When migrations are created and executed, ProtectedModel will raise an exception anytime a deletion is attempted.

Let's extend this example further and only protect deletions on active objects. In this example, the trigger conditionally runs when the row being deleted (the OLD row in trigger terminology) is still active:

class ProtectedModel(models.Model):
    """Active object cannot be deleted!"""
    is_active = models.BooleanField(default=True)

    class Meta:
        triggers = [
            pgtrigger.Protect(
                name='protect_deletes',
                operation=pgtrigger.Delete,
                condition=pgtrigger.Q(old__is_active=True)
            )
        ]

django-pgtrigger uses pgtrigger.Q and pgtrigger.F objects to conditionally execute triggers based on the OLD and NEW rows. Combining these Django idioms with pgtrigger.Trigger objects can solve a wide variety of problems without ever writing SQL. Users, however, can still use raw SQL for complex cases.

Triggers are installed like other database objects. Run python manage.py makemigrations and python manage.py migrate to install triggers.

Compatibility

django-pgtrigger is compatible with Python 3.9 - 3.13, Django 4.2 - 5.1, Psycopg 2 - 3, and Postgres 12 - 17.

Next steps

We recommend everyone first read:

• Installation for how to install the library.
• Basics for an overview and motivation.

After this, there are several usage guides:

• Cookbook for trigger examples.
• Conditional Triggers for all the ways one can create conditional triggers.
• Ignoring Execution for dynamically ignoring triggers.
• Deferrable Triggers for deferring trigger execution.
• Advanced Installation for installing triggers on third-party models, many-to-many models, programmatic installation, and more.
• Advanced Database Setups for notes on how triggers work in multi-database, mutli-schema, or partitioned database setups.

There's additional help in these sections:

• FAQ for common questions like testing and disabling triggers.
• Troubleshooting for advice on known issues.
• Upgrading for upgrading to new major versions.
• Further Reading for additional reading and videos.

Finally, core API information exists in these sections:

• Settings for all available Django settings.
• Commands for using the python manage.py pgtrigger management commands.
• Module for documentation of the pgtrigger module.
• Release Notes for information about every release.
• Contributing Guide for details on contributing to the codebase.