How to customize the shell command

The Django shell is an interactive Python environment that provides access to models and settings, making it useful for testing code, experimenting with queries, and interacting with application data.

Customizing the shell command allows adding extra functionality or pre-loading specific modules. To do this, create a new management command that subclasses django.core.management.commands.shell.Command and overrides the existing shell management command. For more details, refer to the guide on overriding commands.

Customize automatic imports

New in Django 5.2.

To customize the automatic import behavior of the shell management command, override the get_namespace() method. For example:

polls/management/commands/shell.py

from django.core.management.commands import shell


class Command(shell.Command):
    def get_namespace(self):
        from django.urls.base import resolve, reverse

        return {
            **super().get_namespace(),
            "resolve": resolve,
            "reverse": reverse,
        }

The above customization adds resolve() and reverse() to the default namespace, which includes all models from all apps. These two functions will then be available when the shell opens, without a manual import statement.

If you prefer to not have models automatically imported, create a custom get_namespace() that excludes the super().get_namespace() call:

polls/management/commands/shell.py

from django.core.management.commands import shell


class Command(shell.Command):
    def get_namespace(self):
        return {}