Django is a hugely popular framework for creating web applications. Written in Python, the framework is a common choice for new startups, but it is also used by many large-scale applications like Instagram and Eventbrite.

This post will list some commands for setting up your own Django project using Git for version control, pipenv for managing dependencies and a virtual environment, and a terminal such as Terminal or iTerm2 for entering the commands.

Here’s what you can do to start a new Django application:

First, make a new directory for the project and cd into that new directory:

mkdir my-new-django-project
cd my-new-django-project

It’s always a good idea to keep track of your project with Git, so start a new repository in your project directory:

git init

Now that an empty Git repo has been initialized, use pipenv to install Django:

pipenv install django

This will create a virtual environment and a Pipfile to track your project’s dependencies. Django will be added to the Pipfile in the [packages] section.

At this point, your project directory will contain these two files:

Pipfile		Pipfile.lock

Now that you have a virtual environment, enter it with the shell command to start working on your project:

pipenv shell

Within the virtual environment, which has Django installed, you can start a new project:

django-admin startproject <project_name> .

In the above command, <project_name> is just a placeholder; this is where you will provide the name of your Django project.

For example, create a new project called “my_new_django_project” with:

django-admin startproject my_new_django_project .

Be sure to remember the trailing . at the end of the command – this will place all the necessary files within the current directory. Without the . at the end, everything will be put into a different, new, directory and may not be what you want.

Your project directory will now have the following structure:

Pipfile		Pipfile.lock	manage.py	my_new_django_project

manage.py is Django’s command-line utility that sits at the root of your project. You’ll use it to do all sorts of tasks like making/running migrations and starting your development server.

A project package is also created that will have the name you provided in the startproject command. This directory contains all the Django application files and is where you will develop your project.

Before staging and committing your new changes, it’s not a bad idea to create a .gitignore file so you don’t put any unneeded or sensitive files in your version control. You can generate one for new Django projects with gitignore.io.

Stage and commit your new project:

git add .
git commit -m 'install django and start new project'

Use the runserver command to start the development server and see your new app in the browser at http://127.0.0.1:8000/:

python3 manage.py runserver

Now you have a fresh Django project to start building your web app with!