The problem
Django ships a bash completion script in extras/django_bash_completion, but
it requires manual setup and only covers command names and flags. This has been
an open issue since ticket #1240 way back in 2006 — the hard part being app-label and
migration-name completion, which requires project context.
To complete migrate accounts 0002<TAB>, the shell needs to know what
migrations exist in the accounts app — which means loading
DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE and calling django.setup(), initializing the full
app registry on every keystroke. That’s too expensive to do at completion time.
The approach: a post-command cache
After each manage.py invocation, a signal fires discovery (commands, apps,
migrations, options) and writes a small JSON cache into the project root. The
shell completion script reads that file — no Django import, no subprocess, no
database round-trip.
The cache refreshes automatically on every manage.py run, so it stays in
sync without any extra steps.
What it completes
- Management command names
- App labels (filtered: only apps with migrations for the
migratecommand) - Migration names after
migrate <app> - Option flags for any command
Supported invocation styles: python manage.py, python3 manage.py,
./manage.py, uv run python manage.py
Install
pip install django-completion
Add django_completion to INSTALLED_APPS, then:
python manage.py autocomplete install
Restart terminal. Tab works.