Performance and Caching

Factories generate many objects quickly—use them wisely to keep tests fast and deterministic.

AutoFactory shortcuts

general_manager.factory.auto_factory.AutoFactory inspects interface metadata to populate sensible defaults. It derives values for regular fields, many-to-many relations, and handles special fields via handle_custom_fields().

class ProjectFactory(AutoFactory):
    interface = Project.Interface

project = ProjectFactory()

Batch creation

When you need multiple objects, use Factory.create_batch() and wrap the call in django.db.transaction.atomic() to reduce database overhead. AutoFactory automatically fills many-to-many relations after creation.

Caching interactions

Factories interact with the dependency tracker when they call manager APIs. In test suites, disable expensive caches by configuring Django's cache backend to use the local memory backend. For stress tests, enable Redis so you can measure invalidation throughput.

Reusing fixtures

Store common factory setups in conftest.py or dedicated fixture modules. Combine factories with buckets to eagerly load related managers and avoid N+1 queries in tests.

Profiling tips

• Use pytest's --durations flag to identify slow tests and refactor overly complex factory graphs.
• Mock external services inside factory hooks to avoid network overhead.
• Keep measurement-heavy factories lean by reusing precomputed values when possible.