Getting Started

Requirements

• Python >= 3.10
• Django >= 4.2
• RabbitMQ 3.13–4.3
• pika==1.4.1 (installed automatically as a dependency)

Installation

pip install django-rmq

Register the app

Add 'django_rmq' to INSTALLED_APPS in your settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    'django_rmq',
]

RabbitMQAppConfig.ready() reads RABBITMQ_CONNECTIONS on startup and initializes connection managers and registries per alias. The setting must be present and non-empty, or Django will raise ImproperlyConfigured during startup.

Minimal settings

Add a RABBITMQ_CONNECTIONS block with at least one alias. All nine keys are required:

RABBITMQ_CONNECTIONS = {
    'default': {
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': 5672,
        'VIRTUAL_HOST': '/',
        'USER': 'guest',
        'PASSWORD': 'guest',
        'HEARTBEAT': 600,
        'BLOCKED_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT': 300,
        'RECONNECT_INITIAL_BACKOFF': 1.0,
        'RECONNECT_MAX_BACKOFF': 30.0,
    },
}

See for the full parameter reference and how to read values from environment variables.

Publish your first message

Create a Producer and call publish. The queue is declared lazily on the first publish call:

from django_rmq.producer import Producer

Producer(queue='orders').publish(body='{"order_id": 42}')

• body accepts str or bytes. Strings are UTF-8-encoded automatically.
• Every message is published with delivery_mode=2 (persistent) and mandatory=True by default.

See for routing keys, custom properties, exchange-only mode, and the decorator style.

Consume your first message

1. Create and register a consumer

Create a Consumer, register a handler function, and add the consumer to the registry. A good place for this code is a dedicated consumers.py module inside your Django app or even dedicated consumers app:

from pika.adapters.blocking_connection import BlockingChannel
from pika.spec import Basic,
    BasicProperties

from django_rmq.consumer import Consumer
from django_rmq.registries.registry import get_consumers_registry

consumer: Consumer = Consumer(queue='orders')


@consumer
def handle_order(
    ch: BlockingChannel,
    method: Basic.Deliver,
    props: BasicProperties,
    body: bytes,
) -> None:
    # process the message ...
    ch.basic_ack(delivery_tag=method.delivery_tag)


get_consumers_registry().register(consumer=consumer)

The library does not auto-ack messages on success. Every handler must call ch.basic_ack(...) or ch.basic_nack(...) explicitly. If the handler raises an unhandled exception, the consumer calls ch.basic_nack(requeue=False) automatically so the message goes to the dead-letter exchange (if configured) instead of looping forever.

2. Import the consumers module in AppConfig.ready()

Django imports app modules lazily, so the consumers.py module must be imported explicitly to register the consumer before start_consumers runs. Override ready() in your app's AppConfig:

from django.apps import AppConfig


class OrdersConfig(AppConfig):
    name = 'orders'

    def ready(self) -> None:
        import orders.consumers  # noqa: F401

3. Start the consumer runner

uv run python manage.py start_consumers

The command starts one thread per registered consumer, prints a summary table, and handles graceful shutdown on SIGTERM/SIGINT.

Where to keep consumers

Keep consumer definitions in a consumers.py file (or a consumers/ package) at the root of each Django app that owns the queue. Import that module in the app's AppConfig.ready().

Next steps

Topic	Page
Full configuration reference
Producers — decorator mode, exchange routing, custom properties
Consumers — reconnect behavior, DLX, prefetch
Declaring exchanges, queues, and bindings
Registries and the AppConfig lifecycle
Management commands
Reliability guarantees
Multiple broker connections
Full public API
Running and writing tests