Add Comments to Your Django App

• Python 3.10+
• Django 4.2, 5.0, 5.1, or 5.2
• A FastComments tenant ID (use demo to try it without an account)
• An API secret is required only for Secure SSO

Install from a release tag (this project is distributed via git tags, not PyPI):

pip install "git+https://github.com/fastcomments/fastcomments-django.git@v0.1.0"

For server-side REST access (the admin() / public_api() helpers), add the api extra, which pulls in the SDK's generated client:

pip install "fastcomments-django[api] @ git+https://github.com/fastcomments/fastcomments-django.git@v0.1.0"

Add the app to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "fastcomments_django",
]

Configure your tenant in settings.py:

import os

FASTCOMMENTS = {
    "TENANT_ID": os.environ.get("FASTCOMMENTS_TENANT_ID", "demo"),
}

Drop the widget into any template:

{% load fastcomments %}

{% fastcomments url_id="my-page" %}

To pass the logged-in user to the widget automatically, the tags read the current user from the request. Make sure your project has both of these (they are on by default in a standard Django project):

• django.template.context_processors.request in TEMPLATES["OPTIONS"]["context_processors"]
• django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware in MIDDLEWARE

Without a request in the template context, widgets render for an anonymous visitor. You can always pass a user explicitly: {% fastcomments user=some_user %}.

Every widget has its own tag. All of them accept **extra keyword arguments, which are merged into the widget config as-is (use camelCase keys) for anything not covered by the named arguments below.

Named arguments map to the widget's camelCase config keys:

Examples:

{% load fastcomments %}

{% fastcomments url_id="my-page" locale="en_us" default_sort_direction="MR" %}

{% fastcomments_live_chat url_id="room-1" %}

Comments: {% fastcomments_comment_count url_id="my-page" number_only=True %}

{# Collab chat attaches to an existing element on the page #}
<article id="post-body">...</article>
{% fastcomments_collab_chat target="#post-body" %}

{# Bulk counts: place markers, then one bulk loader fills them all in #}
{% for post in posts %}
    <a href="\{{ post.url }}">\{{ post.title }}</a>
    {% fastcomments_count_marker url_id=post.url_id %}
{% endfor %}
{% fastcomments_comment_count_bulk %}

Enable SSO and choose a mode in settings.py. Secure SSO signs the user server-side with HMAC-SHA256 using your API secret and is recommended.

FASTCOMMENTS = {
    "TENANT_ID": os.environ["FASTCOMMENTS_TENANT_ID"],
    "API_KEY": os.environ["FASTCOMMENTS_API_KEY"],   # your API secret; signs Secure SSO
    "SSO": {
        "ENABLED": True,
        "MODE": "secure",                            # "secure" | "simple"
        # Map FastComments fields to your user model. Values may be an attribute
        # name, a dotted path ("profile.avatar_url"), a callable(user), or None.
        "USER_MAP": {
            "id": "id",
            "email": "email",
            "username": "username",
            "avatar": None,
            "display_name": None,
            "website_url": None,
        },
        "IS_ADMIN": lambda user: user.is_staff,      # callable(user) -> bool, or dotted path
        "IS_MODERATOR": None,
        "GROUP_IDS": None,                           # callable(user) -> list, or dotted path
    },
}

Choose the SSO id deliberately. The FastComments id is the permanent handle for a user's comment history. The default USER_MAP maps it to your Django primary key for zero-config convenience, but sequential integer PKs are enumerable and hard to change later (changing a user's id splits their history into a new account). For anything beyond a demo, map id to a stable, opaque value chosen up front (a UUID or a dedicated public id), and never put private data in it. The example app uses a username-based id for this reason.

SSO is injected automatically into {% fastcomments %}, {% fastcomments_live_chat %}, {% fastcomments_collab_chat %}, {% fastcomments_image_chat %}, and {% fastcomments_user_activity %} for the current user.

Login/logout URLs shown to signed-out visitors default to reverse("login") / reverse("logout"); override them with SSO["LOGIN_URL"] / SSO["LOGOUT_URL"].

Custom mapping

Two higher-precedence options beat USER_MAP:

• A method on your user model (the Pythonic analog of an interface):

  class User(AbstractUser):
      def to_fastcomments_user_data(self):
          return {"id": self.pk, "email": self.email, "username": self.get_username()}

• A global mapper, a dotted path to callable(user) -> dict:

  FASTCOMMENTS = {"SSO": {"USER_MAPPER": "myapp.sso.map_user"}}

Precedence is USER_MAPPER > to_fastcomments_user_data() > USER_MAP.

With the [api] extra installed, call the FastComments REST API through the SDK, pre-configured with your API key and region:

from fastcomments_django import admin, public_api, get_manager

admin().get_comments("YOUR_TENANT_ID", ...)     # authenticated (DefaultApi)
public_api().get_comments_public(...)            # public (PublicApi)

# Generate an SSO token for API calls or client hand-off:
token = get_manager().sso().token_for(request.user)

Set REGION to route the widgets and API to the EU:

FASTCOMMENTS = {"TENANT_ID": "...", "REGION": "eu"}

Override fastcomments/widget.html by placing your own copy earlier on the template search path (a project templates/fastcomments/widget.html). This is the Django analog of Laravel's vendor:publish --tag=fastcomments-views.

A runnable showcase lives in example/: a left-rail + main-stage app with a page per widget and a sign-in page listing pre-seeded demo users. Sign in as any of them and the comment and live-chat widgets authenticate that identity via Secure SSO. From that directory:

python manage.py migrate
# Use your own tenant to see Secure SSO in action (an API secret enables it):
FASTCOMMENTS_TENANT_ID=... FASTCOMMENTS_API_KEY=... python manage.py runserver

Without an API secret it falls back to the public demo tenant (anonymous). example/browser_smoke.py is a Playwright e2e that loads the page in a real browser and posts a comment as the Secure-SSO user.