Contributing

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs on the GitHub issue tracker.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

The version of python and Django you're running
Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with "bug" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with "feature" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

dj-stripe could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official dj-stripe docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

The prose documentation lives as plain Markdown under docs/. You can edit those files directly — no build step is required to make a change.

The published site at dj-stripe.dev is built from this Markdown by a separate repository, dj-stripe/dj-stripe.dev, which also auto-generates the API reference from the docstrings in the djstripe package. To preview the fully rendered site locally, clone that repository and follow its README. Markdown in docs/ may use shortcut references like [`Customer.charge`][djstripe.models.core.Customer.charge] to link into the generated API reference.

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue on GitHub.

If you are proposing a feature:

Explain in detail how it would work.
Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)

Get Started!

Ready to contribute? Here's how to set up local development.

Fork dj-stripe on Github.

Clone your fork locally:

$ git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/dj-stripe.git

Set up pre-commit:

$ git init # A git repo is required to install pre-commit
$ pre-commit install

Set up your test database. If you're running tests using PostgreSQL:
```
$ createdb djstripe
```
or if you want to test vs sqlite (for convenience) or MySQL, they can be selected by setting this environment variable:
```
$ export DJSTRIPE_TEST_DB_VENDOR=sqlite
# or: export DJSTRIPE_TEST_DB_VENDOR=mysql
```
For postgres and mysql, the database host,port,username and password can be set with environment variables, see tests/settings.py
Install uv if you do not have it already.

You can set up a virtual environment with:
```
$ uv sync
```
You can then run any command inside that environment by prefixing it with uv run, for example uv run pytest.
When you're done making changes, check that your changes pass the tests. A quick test run can be done as follows:
```
$ DJSTRIPE_TEST_DB_VENDOR=sqlite uv run pytest --reuse-db
```
You should also check that the tests pass with other python and Django versions with tox. pytest will output both command line and html coverage statistics and will warn you if your changes caused code coverage to drop.:
```
$ uv run --group ci tox
```
If your changes altered the models you may need to generate Django migrations:
```
$ DJSTRIPE_TEST_DB_VENDOR=sqlite uv run ./manage.py makemigrations
```

Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
$ git push

Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Congratulations, you're now a dj-stripe contributor! Have some ♥ from us.

Preferred Django Model Field Types

When mapping from Stripe API field types to Django model fields, we try to follow Django best practises where practical.

The following types should be preferred for fields that map to the Stripe API (which is almost all fields in our models).

Strings

Stripe API string fields have a default maximum length of 5,000 characters.
In some cases a maximum length (maxLength) is specified in the Stripe OpenAPI schema.
We follow Django's recommendation and avoid using null on string fields (which means we store "" for string fields that are null in stripe). Note that is enforced in the sync logic in StripeModel._stripe_object_to_record.
For long string fields (eg above 255 characters) we prefer TextField over Charfield.

Therefore the default type for string fields that don't have a maxLength specified in the Stripe OpenAPI schema should usually be:

str_field = TextField(max_length=5000, default="", blank=True, help_text="...")

Enumerations

Fields that have a defined set of values can be implemented using StripeEnumField.

Hash (dictionaries)

Use the JSONField in djstripe.fields.

Currency amounts

Stripe handles all currency amounts as integer cents, we currently have a mixture of fields as integer cents and decimal (eg dollar, euro etc) values, but we are aiming to standardise on cents (see https://github.com/dj-stripe/dj-stripe/issues/955).

All new currency amount fields should use StripeQuantumCurrencyAmountField.

Dates and Datetimes

The Stripe API uses an integer timestamp (seconds since the Unix epoch) for dates and datetimes. We store this as a datetime field, using StripeDateTimeField.

Django Migration Policy

Migrations are considered a breaking change, so it's usually not acceptable to add a migration to a stable branch, it will be a new MAJOR.MINOR.0 release.

A workaround to this in the case that the Stripe API data isn't compatible with out model (eg Stripe is sending null to a non-null field) is to implement the _manipulate_stripe_object_hook classmethod on the model.

Avoid new migrations with non-schema changes

If a code change produces a migration that doesn't alter the database schema (eg changing help_text) then instead of adding a new migration you can edit the most recent migration that affects the field in question.

e.g.: https://github.com/dj-stripe/dj-stripe/commit/e2762c38918a90f00c42ecf21187a920bd3a2087

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

The pull request should include tests.
The pull request must not drop code coverage below the current level.
If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put your new functionality into a function with a docstring.
If the pull request makes changes to a model, include Django migrations.
The pull request should work for all supported Python and Django versions (see pyproject.toml). Check Github Actions and make sure that the tests pass.
Code formatting: Make sure to install pre-commit to automatically run it on staged files or run manually with pre-commit run --all-files at the dj-stripe root to keep a consistent style.