Appendix: Local Development Setup
Explore how to create a local Django development environment using Python 3.13 and Django 6.0. Learn to set up a virtual environment, install dependencies, initialize your project, run migrations, create a superuser, and launch the local admin server to follow course examples on your own machine.
While our platform provides a pre-configured environment to keep you focused on learning, running the code on your own machine is excellent practice for real-world development. Setting up a local environment ensures you have complete control over your dependencies and file structure.
We will use modern Python 3.13+ standards to build a dedicated virtual environment, install Django 6.0.4, and replicate the core project architecture used throughout this course.
Creating a virtual environment
A virtual environment isolates your project dependencies from the global Python installation on your system. This prevents version conflicts between different projects. We use the built-in venv module to create this isolated environment.
Open your local terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to store your project. Run the following command:
python -m venv .venv
It executes the built-in venv module and creates a new ...