# Best way to type-hint a custom 'User' model?

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/best-way-to-type-hint-a-custom-user-model/37331>\
**Category:** Using the ORM\
**Created:** [December 19, 2024, 3:14pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/best-way-to-type-hint-a-custom-user-model/37331 "2024-12-19T15:14:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ed-p-may](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/ed-p-may/32/25704_2.png) [@ed-p-may](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/ed-p-may)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2024, 3:14pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/best-way-to-type-hint-a-custom-user-model/37331/1 "2024-12-19T15:14:17Z")

</div>

Hi! I am new to Django and still trying to understand the best-practices and patterns. I wonder if anyone has any suggestions for type-hinting custom `User` models so that I don’t get a bunch of warnings when I access them through `request.user`?

For instance if I have a simple model like this:

```python
# models.py
class User(AbstractUser):
    is_special_user = models.BooleanField(default=False)

```

which inherits from `AbstractUser`, which itself inherits from `AbstractBaseUser`, I get a lot of warnings (I use VSCode) when I try and access the `request.user` and use it in any functions that require a `User`. For instance in something like this:

```python
# views.py
def my_func(user: User) -> None:
    print(user.is_special_user)

@login_required
def my_view(request: WSGIRequest) -> None:
    my_func(request.user)

```

I get warnings about how:

```auto
Argument of type "AbstractBaseUser | AnonymousUser" cannot be assigned to parameter "user" of type "User" in function "my_func"

"AbstractBaseUser | AnonymousUser" is not assignable to "User"

Pylance[reportArgumentType]
(https://github.com/microsoft/pyright/blob/main/docs/configuration.md#reportArgumentType)
(variable) user: AbstractBaseUser

```

I suppose this might be a VSCode specific issue, and not something Django related necessarily? But I wonder if anyone has found any good methods for avoiding these warnings and ensuring that user is typed properly?

* * *

The best I have come up with so far is to just create a wrapper function, and use `# type: ignore` to mask out the warnings… but I assume there is a better way to handle this?

```python
def get_user(request: WSGIRequest) -> User:
    return request.user # type: ignore

```

thanks so much for any advice or suggestions!  
best,  
@ed-p-may