id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
24370	Recommend that all new projects use a custom user model	Carl Meyer	Krzysztof Gogolewski	"Right now, our custom user model docs are buried deep in the auth-customization docs, and are a bit intimidating - because it assumes that you would only need a custom user model if making significant departures from the default User, the examples used require a fair amount of boilerplate, and there are several big scary warning callouts. I've dealt with many people in #django in a position where they needed a custom user model, but had already launched the project without one, leaving them with no good options. Several of these people specifically said that they'd considered using a custom user model initially, but were scared off by the docs.

Every single new Django project, even if it doesn't initially need anything different from the default user model, should start with a two-line custom user model like this:

{{{
from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser

class User(AbstractUser):
    pass
}}}

It's trivial to setup, there is no downside, and there is massive upside: later in the project, when you realize that you need unique emails, or an additional field, or some other departure from the default, it's easy to use migrations to modify an existing custom user model. It's extremely difficult to migrate from the default user model to a custom user model.

(Ironically, the warnings in the documentation that scare people away from starting with a custom user model are all about problems with switching to one mid-stream; problems that would be totally avoided if people did start off with a custom user model!)

My proposal: we reorganize the ""Customizing Authentication"" page to recommend and feature the super-simple custom user model as shown above. We also link to that page from the tutorial with a recommendation to start your real project with a custom user model. (I don't know that we should actually modify the tutorial code, as that's a bit of additional complexity, but I think people should at least be encouraged to go look at the auth-customization docs.)"	Cleanup/optimization	closed	Documentation	1.7	Normal	fixed		cmawebsite@…	Accepted	1	0	0	0	0	0