GraphQL Recipe Management (Django + Strawberry)

A small Dockerized Django project exposing a GraphQL API for managing recipes and ingredients. It uses:

• Django (REST framework for serializers)

• Strawberry for GraphQL

• djangorestframework-simplejwt for JWT authentication

• PostgreSQL via Docker Compose

• WhiteNoise to serve static files (admin UI)

This README explains how to run the project locally with Docker, how to use the GraphQL API (with JWT authentication), and where to find the main code pieces.

⚖️ Repository layout

• manage.py - Django management script

• schema.py - (project-level) Strawberry schema entrypoint

• config/ - Django project settings, URLs and WSGI

• config/settings/ - base & environment settings

• recipe/ - Django app with models, serializers and GraphQL schema

• recipe/schema.py - Strawberry types, queries and mutations

• recipe/serializers.py - DRF serializers used by GraphQL mutations

• recipe/urls.py - app-level GraphQL route wrapper

Other important files:

• Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml - Docker configuration

• .env - environment variables used by Docker and Django (should not be committed)

🛠️ Quick start (Docker)

Prerequisites: Docker and Docker Compose installed.

1. Create or copy a .env file at the project root and set at minimum:

• POSTGRES_DB, POSTGRES_USER, POSTGRES_PASSWORD (required by Postgres image on first init)

• SECRET_KEY, DEBUG, ALLOWED_HOSTS

2. Build and start the services:

docker-compose up --build

To run detached and tail logs:

docker-compose up --build -d

docker-compose logs -f web

3. Inside the web container create a superuser if you need admin access:

docker-compose run web python manage.py createsuperuser

4. Run migrations (if not already applied by container startup):

docker-compose run web python manage.py makemigrations

docker-compose run web python manage.py migrate

🏂 Demo user (create_demo_user)

• The management command python manage.py create_demo_user reads the following environment variables:

• DEMO_USERNAME (username to create/update)

• DEMO_PASSWORD (password to set)

• DEMO_EMAIL (optional email)

• DEMO_IS_SUPERUSER (optional; values 1, true, yes are treated as true)

• Behavior: This is an alternative way to create Demo user, Incase If you can't use docker-compose run web python manage.py createsuperuser. If DEMO_USERNAME or DEMO_PASSWORD are not provided the command will skip quietly (it prints a short warning and exits successfully). When both are present the command will create or update the user, set the password, and apply the is_superuser/is_staff flags. This way we can make a default user even when we deploy this app into a cloud service.

Example usage snippet:

docker-compose run web python manage.py migrate

docker-compose run web python manage.py create_demo_user

• Example environment variables (You have to set these in your host/service UI of Web service, do not commit them to source control):

• DEMO_USERNAME=demo

• DEMO_PASSWORD=<secure-password>

• DEMO_EMAIL=demo@example.com

• DEMO_IS_SUPERUSER=False

• Security: Never commit credentials into the repository. Use your hosting provider's secret/env management to store demo account credentials.

🖥️ Static files / Admin UI

Static files are collected during the Docker build and served by WhiteNoise. If the Django admin appears unstyled:

• Confirm whitenoise is present in requirements.txt and WhiteNoiseMiddleware is added to MIDDLEWARE in config/settings/base.py.

• Rebuild the image to pick up changes:

docker-compose up --build

Then open the admin at http://localhost:8000/admin/ and log in with the superuser.

🍓 GraphQL API

• GraphQL endpoint: POST /graphql/

• JWT token endpoint: POST /api/token/ (DRF SimpleJWT)

Authentication: obtain an access token from /api/token/ and include it on GraphQL requests using the Authorization: Bearer <access_token> header. The project wires JWT authentication at the GraphQL URL wrapper and resolvers expect info.context['request'] to contain the Django request.

Example: obtain a token with curl (PowerShell):

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/token/  -H "Content-Type: application/json"  -d '{"username":"<username>","password":"<password>"}'

Example GraphQL query (ingredients):

query  {

ingredients(search: "salt",  first: 10,  offset: 0)  {

id

name

description

}

}

Call via curl (replace <ACCESS_TOKEN>):

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/graphql/  -H "Content-Type: application/json"  -H "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>"  -d '{"query":"query { ingredients(first: 10) { id name } }"}'

Example GraphQL mutation (create a recipe with ingredient IDs):

mutation  {

createRecipe(name: "Pasta",  instructions: "Boil.",  ingredientIds: [1,2])  {

id

name

ingredientCount

ingredients  {  id  name  }

}

}

Call it via curl:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/graphql/  -H "Content-Type: application/json"  -H "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>"  -d '{"query":"mutation { createRecipe(name:\"Pasta\", instructions:\"Boil.\", ingredientIds:[1,2]) { id name ingredients { id name } } }"}'

Mutations and queries are implemented in recipe/schema.py and mutations generally use DRF serializers found in recipe/serializers.py for validation and creation.

📚 Development notes

• Schema location: recipe/schema.py. Resolvers receive info.context['request'] with the Django request set by the GraphQL URL wrapper.

• JWT auth: recipe/urls.py include a small wrapper that authenticates using DRF's JWTAuthentication and sets request.user before invoking the Strawberry GraphQLView.

• Permissions: Strawberry permission classes (e.g. an IsAuthenticated permission) used to avoid repeating authentication checks in every resolver.

• Performance: The recipes resolver uses prefetch_related('ingredients') to avoid N+1 queries when resolving nested ingredients.

Notes: The create_demo_user command reads DEMO_USERNAME and DEMO_PASSWORD from env and will create or update the account. No default credentials are set in the code.

⚠️ Troubleshooting

• "Database is uninitialized and superuser password is not specified": make sure POSTGRES_PASSWORD is set in .env so the Postgres container initializes.

• relation 'recipe_recipe' does not exist: run migrations with python manage.py migrate inside the web service.

• Admin static assets 404: rebuild image so collectstatic runs and verify WhiteNoise is configured in config/settings/base.py.

🔬 Next steps / improvements

• Add unit and integration tests for GraphQL resolvers and mutations.

• Add role-based authorization or more granular permissions.

📧 Contributing

Project is developed by JIT100. Found an issue or want to request a feature?

• Please open an Issue on GitHub.

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