Creating an installable Django app with a 3rd party dependency - django

Question

I am in the process of creating an installable Django app on pypi which can be added to INSTALLED_APPS. The app works correctly up to this point.
The problem now is that I wish to use Django Rest Framework within my app. Does this mean that users will have to add my app as well as Django Rest Framework to their INSTALLED_APPS when installing my app?
Is there a way to simply add my app to INSTALLED_APPS without the user being aware of or needing to worry about anything else. They don't need to know that I use Django Rest Framework under the hood?
I have already added djangorestframework to my setup.py so that it is installed when the user pip installs my package. So the questions is around whether or not the user has to explicitly add it to INSTALLED_APPS.

Answer 1

The best you can/(should) do is add rest framework as dependency in your application, and instruct users to add rest framework in installed apps. Because project settings should not be modified pragmatically, should explicitly hard coded and remain read-only within code base.
You should instruct users to add rest framework in installed apps like this package does
One other thing you can do is check whether user have installed 'rest_framework' or not in ready hook of your AppConfig class like this
class YourAppConfig(AppConfig):
name = 'yourapp'
def ready(self):
from django.conf import settings
if 'rest_framework' not in settings.INSTALLED_APPS:
raise ImproperlyConfigured('rest_framework must be in installed apps.')
It will at least force them to do so.

Answer 2

You can add djangorestframework to your install_requires in your setup.py.
Then, when your user runs pip install yourapp, it will install rest framework as well.
Personally, I would say to add 'yourapp' and 'rest_framework' to INSTALLED_APPS in your setup instructions. You may be able to find a way to automatically add it, but it might not be worth the effort. As an example Django Debug Toolbar removed its automatic setup code to reduce complexity.