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The Bakery Demo includes several custom management commands to help you work with the demo data, test performance, and maintain your development environment.

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Overview

All management commands are located in bakerydemo/base/management/commands/ and can be run using: 
./manage.py <command_name> [options]

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Available Commands

load_initial_data

Load demo fixtures and media files

create_random_data

Generate random content for testing

reset_demo

Reset demo to initial state

reset_admin_password

Update admin password from settings

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load_initial_data

Loads the initial demo data including pages, images, snippets, and media files.

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Usage

./manage.py load_initial_data

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What It Does

1

Copy Media Files

Recursively copies media files from bakerydemo/base/fixtures/media to your configured storage backend.
local_storage = FileSystemStorage(os.path.join(fixtures_dir, "media"))
self._copy_files(local_storage, "")
This works with both local file storage and cloud providers like S3.
2

Clean Default Content

Removes the auto-generated default Site and Page instances that Wagtail creates during installation:
if Site.objects.filter(hostname="localhost").exists():
    Site.objects.get(hostname="localhost").delete()
if Page.objects.filter(title="Welcome to your new Wagtail site!").exists():
    Page.objects.get(title="Welcome to your new Wagtail site!").delete()
3

Load Fixtures

Loads the demo data from bakerydemo/base/fixtures/bakerydemo.json:
call_command("loaddata", fixture_file, verbosity=0)
4

Update Indexes

Rebuilds the search and reference indexes:
call_command("update_index", verbosity=0)
call_command("rebuild_references_index", verbosity=0)

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Example Output

Copying media files to configured storage...
Awesome. Your data is loaded! The bakery's doors are almost ready to open...

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Use Cases

  • Initial project setup
  • Restoring demo data after testing
  • Setting up a new environment
  • Resetting to a known good state
This command is automatically called by reset_demo after resetting the database.

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create_random_data

Generates random pages, snippets, and images for performance testing and load testing.

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Usage

./manage.py create_random_data <page_count> <snippet_count> <image_count>

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Arguments

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page_count
integer
required
Number of pages of each type to create (blog, bread, location, standard)
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snippet_count
integer
required
Number of snippets of each type to create (countries, ingredients, bread types, people, footer text)
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image_count
integer
required
Total number of images to create

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Examples

# Create 10 pages, 5 snippets, and 20 images
./manage.py create_random_data 10 5 20

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What It Creates

Bread Pages (page_count items)
BreadPage(
    title=lorem_ipsum.words(4, common=False),
    introduction=lorem_ipsum.paragraph(),
    bread_type=random_bread_type,
    body=fake_stream_field(),
    origin=random_country,
    image=random_image,
)
Location Pages (page_count items)
LocationPage(
    title=lorem_ipsum.words(4, common=False),
    introduction=lorem_ipsum.paragraph(),
    image=random_image,
    address=lorem_ipsum.paragraph(),
    body=fake_stream_field(),
    lat_long="64.144367, -21.939182",
)
Blog Pages (page_count items)
BlogPage(
    title=lorem_ipsum.words(4, common=False),
    introduction=lorem_ipsum.paragraph(),
    body=fake_stream_field(),
    subtitle=lorem_ipsum.words(10, common=False),
    date_published=timezone.now(),
)
Standard Pages (page_count + 1 items)Creates one top-level page and page_count child pages nested under it.
For each snippet type, creates snippet_count items:
  • Countries: Random country names
  • Bread Ingredients: Random ingredient names
  • Bread Types: Random bread type names
  • People: Random person with first name, last name, job title, and image
  • Footer Text: Random footer content
Creates image_count images by randomly selecting from fixtures:
# Source images from
FIXTURE_MEDIA_DIR = "bakerydemo/base/fixtures/media/original_images"

# Each image includes:
Image.objects.create(
    title=random_title,
    width=image_width,
    height=image_height,
    file_size=file_size,
)

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Example Output

Creating images...
Creating countries...
Creating bread ingredients...
Creating bread types...
Creating people...
Creating footer text...
Creating bread pages...
Creating location pages...
Creating blog pages...
Creating standard pages...

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Use Cases

  • Performance Testing: Generate large datasets to test page load times
  • Load Testing: Create thousands of pages to test server capacity
  • UI Testing: Test pagination, filtering, and search with lots of content
  • Database Optimization: Test query performance with realistic data volumes
Generating large datasets (e.g., 1000+ pages) can take several minutes and significantly increase database size.

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reset_demo

Resets the entire demo to its initial state by wiping the database and reloading fixtures.

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Usage

./manage.py reset_demo
This command is destructive and will delete all data. Only available with PostgreSQL databases.

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Requirements

  • PostgreSQL database (will not work with SQLite)
  • django-extensions installed (included in development requirements)

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What It Does

1

Validate Database

Ensures you’re using PostgreSQL:
if settings.DATABASES[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS]["ENGINE"] not in POSTGRESQL_ENGINES:
    raise CommandError(
        "This command can be used only with PostgreSQL databases."
    )
2

Remove Storage Files

Removes all files from S3 or deletes images/documents:
if "s3" in default_storage.__class__.__name__.lower():
    default_storage.bucket.objects.all().delete()
else:
    get_image_model().objects.all().delete()
    get_document_model().objects.all().delete()
3

Reset Database Schema

Drops all tables and recreates the schema:
call_command("reset_schema", interactive=False)
4

Run Migrations

Applies all migrations:
call_command("migrate", interactive=False)
5

Clear Caches

Clears all configured caches:
for cache in caches.all():
    cache.clear()
6

Reload Data

Loads initial demo data:
call_command("load_initial_data")
7

Reset Admin Password

Updates the admin password:
call_command("reset_admin_password")

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Example Output

Removing files from S3
Reset schema
Running migrations...
Copying media files to configured storage...
Awesome. Your data is loaded! The bakery's doors are almost ready to open...

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Use Cases

  • Reset demo after testing destructive operations
  • Clean slate for demonstrations
  • Fix database corruption issues
  • Prepare staging environment

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Alternative for SQLite

If you’re using SQLite, manually reset by: 
rm bakerydemodb
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py load_initial_data

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reset_admin_password

Updates the admin user’s password to match the ADMIN_PASSWORD setting.

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Usage

./manage.py reset_admin_password

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What It Does

admin_user = User.objects.get(username="admin")
admin_user.set_password(settings.ADMIN_PASSWORD)
admin_user.save(update_fields=["password"])

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Configuration

The password is read from settings (default: “changeme”): 
# bakerydemo/settings/base.py
ADMIN_PASSWORD = os.environ.get("ADMIN_PASSWORD", "changeme")

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Setting a Custom Password

export ADMIN_PASSWORD="your-secure-password"
./manage.py reset_admin_password

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Use Cases

  • Synchronize password across environments
  • Reset password after demo sessions
  • Automate deployment scripts
  • Called automatically by reset_demo
This command only updates the password if a user named “admin” exists. It will raise an error if the admin user is not found.

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Built-in Django Commands

The demo also uses standard Django and Wagtail management commands:

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Database Management

# Run migrations
./manage.py migrate

# Create migrations
./manage.py makemigrations

# Show migrations
./manage.py showmigrations

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Search Index

# Update search index
./manage.py update_index

# Rebuild search index
./manage.py rebuild_index

# Rebuild references index
./manage.py rebuild_references_index

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User Management

# Create superuser
./manage.py createsuperuser

# Change user password
./manage.py changepassword admin

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Data Export

# Export all data
./manage.py dumpdata --natural-foreign --indent 2 \
  -e auth.permission -e contenttypes \
  -e wagtailcore.GroupCollectionPermission \
  -e wagtailimages.rendition -e sessions \
  > backup.json

# Load data
./manage.py loaddata backup.json

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Development

# Start development server
./manage.py runserver

# Run tests
./manage.py test

# Open Django shell
./manage.py shell

# Show project URLs
./manage.py show_urls

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Common Workflows

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Fresh Start

# Reset everything to initial state
rm bakerydemodb
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py load_initial_data
./manage.py runserver

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Performance Testing

# Load initial data
./manage.py load_initial_data

# Add 100 pages for testing
./manage.py create_random_data 100 50 200

# Test search performance
./manage.py update_index

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Demo Preparation

# Reset to clean state (PostgreSQL only)
./manage.py reset_demo

# Or manually (SQLite)
rm bakerydemodb
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py load_initial_data

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Tips and Best Practices

Always ensure your virtual environment is activated:
source .venv/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux
.venv\Scripts\activate.bat  # Windows
Add -v 2 or -v 3 for more detailed output:
./manage.py migrate -v 2
./manage.py load_initial_data -v 3
Create a setup script for common workflows:
#!/bin/bash
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py load_initial_data
./manage.py create_random_data 10 5 20
./manage.py runserver
Always backup data before running reset commands:
./manage.py dumpdata > backup.json
./manage.py reset_demo

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Next Steps

Customization Guide

Learn how to customize the demo

Project Structure

Understand the codebase layout

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