Does Django Work With GitHub Actions?

Fully CompatibleLast verified: 2026-02-20

Django and GitHub Actions work together seamlessly for automated testing, deployment, and code quality checks directly from your repository.

Quick Facts

Compatibility

full

Setup Difficulty

Easy

Official Integration

No — community maintained

Confidence

high

Minimum Versions

Django: 2.2

How Django Works With GitHub Actions

Django integrates naturally with GitHub Actions through standard CI/CD workflows. You define YAML workflow files in your repository that run Django's test suite, perform linting, and deploy applications on push events or pull requests. GitHub Actions provides free minutes for public repositories and can execute multiple Python versions simultaneously, making it ideal for testing Django code across different environments. The workflow runner installs dependencies via pip, executes `manage.py test` or pytest, and reports results directly in pull requests. Developers benefit from immediate feedback on code quality without managing separate CI infrastructure. You can integrate with Django's ORM, manage database migrations in workflows, and run coverage reports. The main consideration is that GitHub Actions runs on ephemeral containers, so you'll use temporary SQLite databases or services like PostgreSQL containers for realistic testing. Secrets management is handled through GitHub's encrypted environment variables, making it safe to store database credentials or deployment tokens.

Best Use Cases

→Running automated tests on every pull request across Python 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, and 3.11 simultaneously

→Validating database migrations with `manage.py migrate` in CI before merging

→Deploying Django applications to cloud platforms (Heroku, AWS, Azure) automatically on merge to main

→Running code quality checks with Black, Flake8, and isort on each commit

Django Test Workflow with PostgreSQL

bash

pip install django pytest pytest-django psycopg2-binary

bash

name: Django Tests
on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:14
        env:
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
        options: >-
          --health-cmd pg_isready
          --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s
          --health-retries 5
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v4
        with:
          python-version: '3.11'
      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt
      - run: python manage.py migrate
      - run: python manage.py test
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/test_db

Known Issues & Gotchas

warning

Database state not persisting between workflow steps

Fix: Use Docker services for PostgreSQL/MySQL or rely on Django's test database isolation. Seed data in fixtures or migrations that run during test setup.

warning

Long test suites timing out (default 360 minutes per job, but can feel slow)

Fix: Split tests across multiple jobs using matrix strategy, use pytest-xdist for parallel execution, or optimize slow database queries.

critical

Environment variables and secrets not available in workflows by default

Fix: Define secrets in GitHub repository settings and reference them as `${{ secrets.SECRET_NAME }}` in workflow YAML. Use `.env.example` for documentation.

info

Static files and media uploads fail during testing

Fix: Set `STATIC_ROOT` and `MEDIA_ROOT` to temporary directories, or use `collectstatic --noinput` before tests run.

Alternatives

•GitLab CI/CD with Django - native `.gitlab-ci.yml` integration, similar setup complexity
•CircleCI with Django - more advanced configuration options, better caching for large projects
•Jenkins with Django - self-hosted solution offering more control but higher maintenance overhead

Resources

docsDjango Testing Documentation githubGitHub Actions Python Starter Workflow docsGitHub Actions Official Documentation tutorialSetting up PostgreSQL service in GitHub Actions

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