Quickstart

This quickstart walks you through the minimum steps required to add GeneralManager to a Django project and expose a simple manager over GraphQL. It assumes Django ≥ 4.2 and Python ≥ 3.12.

1. Install the package

pip install GeneralManager

Add general_manager to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py and configure the Django cache backend you use for dependency tracking.

2. Define a manager

Create a manager that describes the fields you want to expose. Each manager defines an inner Interface class that handles persistence.

# apps/materials/managers.py
from django.db.models import CharField, TextField

from general_manager.interface import DatabaseInterface
from general_manager.manager import GeneralManager

class Material(GeneralManager):
    name: str
    description: str | None

    class Interface(DatabaseInterface):
        name = CharField(max_length=100)
        description = TextField(null=True, blank=True)

3. Apply database migrations

Interfaces automatically derive a Django model. Include it in an application models.py (or import it in apps.py) so Django discovers the model, then run:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

4. Create permission rules

Managers enforce access checks through the nested Permission class. Grant access based on attributes, user groups, or custom callables.

from general_manager.permission.manager_based_permission import AdditiveManagerPermission

class Material(GeneralManager):
    ...

    class Permission(AdditiveManagerPermission):
        __read__ = ["public"]
        __create__ = ["isAdmin"]
        __update__ = ["isAdmin"]
        __delete__ = ["isAdmin"]

5. Seed data

Use the manager API to populate the database. CRUD operations automatically record audit metadata.

material = Material.create(
    creator_id=request.user.id,
    history_comment="Initial load",
    name="Steel",
    description="High grade structural steel",
)

6. Expose GraphQL schema

Add a URL route to serve the GraphQL schema by adding the following settings to your settings.py:

# settings.py
AUTOCREATE_GRAPHQL = True
GRAPHQL_URL = "graphql/"

Run your server and test the following query:

query {
  materialList {
    name
    description
  }
}

Next steps

• Study the architecture overview to understand how buckets, managers, and interfaces cooperate.
• Explore the tutorials to learn how to add permissions, measurements, and computed fields.