Django REST Framework (DRF): Architecture & First API View

Modern web and mobile architectures are overwhelmingly decoupled: backend servers serve JSON data endpoints, while frontend applications (React, Next.js, Flutter, iOS, Android) consume those endpoints. Django REST Framework (DRF) is the industry standard for turning Django applications into production-grade RESTful APIs.

Figure 32.1: The DRF Request-Response Pipeline — Serialization, Authentication, ViewSets, and JSON Payloads.

Step 1: Installation & Settings Configuration

# Install DRF
pip install djangorestframework

Register DRF and configure sensible defaults in settings.py:

# mywebsite/settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    'rest_framework',
    'blog',
]

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    # Default Permissions: Read-only for public, write for logged-in users
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticatedOrReadOnly',
    ],
    # Default Authentication Schemes
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication',
        'rest_framework.authentication.BasicAuthentication',
    ],
    # Default JSON Pagination
    'DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS': 'rest_framework.pagination.PageNumberPagination',
    'PAGE_SIZE': 10,
}

Building Your First API Endpoint in 3 Steps

1. Define the Serializer:

# blog/serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import BlogPost

class BlogPostSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = BlogPost
        fields = ['id', 'title', 'slug', 'summary', 'content', 'created_at']

2. Define the View:

# blog/views.py
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.decorators import api_view
from .models import BlogPost
from .serializers import BlogPostSerializer

@api_view(['GET'])
def api_posts_list(request):
    posts = BlogPost.objects.filter(is_published=True)[:10]
    serializer = BlogPostSerializer(posts, many=True)
    return Response(serializer.data)

3. Register the Route:

# blog/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('api/posts/', views.api_posts_list, name='api_posts_list'),
]