[FIXED] Django keeps logging me out from dev server when changing my codebase

Issue

In my Django app I have a lot of if request.user.is_authenticated logic and once I change some code other than in templates (like forms, models, views, etc.) I get logged out from the development server which makes it quite annoying to always have to re-login in the frontend to test my prior code changes again.

Is there any way to stay logged in (a superuser) when in Debug = True (or other) mode?

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = os.getenv("DEBUG", "False") == "True"

# Add s.th. here to keep me logged in?

# settings.py

SECRET_KEY = os.getenv("DJANGO_SECRET_KEY", get_random_secret_key())

MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware",
]

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    
    ...
]

Solution

The problem is:

SECRET_KEY = os.getenv("DJANGO_SECRET_KEY", get_random_secret_key())

You are generating a new secret key every time the server is restarted. The authentication details are stored in django_sessions table, and the session details are hashed with the SECRET_KEY. So, every time the SECRET_KEY value is changed, the current session details are invalidated and you need to freshly login again.

For the solution: Generate a random secret key manually once and store it as an environment variable in every environment (be it staging, production, or development).

Hope you find this useful.

Answered By - Rohit Rahman