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Version: 1.0

Configuration

Django RLS is configured through the DJANGO_RLS dictionary in your Django settings.

# settings.py
DJANGO_RLS = {
    "AUTO_ENABLE_RLS": True,
    "REQUIRE_CONTEXT": False,
    "ALLOW_SESSION_TENANT": False,
    "AUDIT_LOG": False,
}

Settings reference​

AUTO_ENABLE_RLS (default: True)​

When True, RLS is enabled on RLSModel tables after migrations via the post_migrate signal.

Set to False if you enable RLS manually (for example with python manage.py enable_rls in deploy scripts).

STRICT_MIGRATE_RLS (default: False)​

When True, failures during automatic post-migrate RLS enablement raise instead of being logged. Use in CI or strict deploy pipelines.

DEFAULT_ROLES (default: "public")​

Default PostgreSQL role list for policies that do not specify roles= explicitly.

DEFAULT_PERMISSIVE (default: True)​

Whether new policies are permissive (True) or restrictive (False) when not specified on the policy class.

REQUIRE_CONTEXT (default: False)​

When True, RLSModel querysets require user_id or tenant_id to be set before database access. Raises RLSContextRequiredError if identity context is missing.

Recommended for production APIs and background workers where anonymous queries should fail closed.

ALLOW_SESSION_TENANT (default: False)​

When True, middleware may read tenant_id from request.session. Disabled by default in 1.0.0 because session data is client-influenced.

Pair with TENANT_MEMBERSHIP_VALIDATOR when enabling.

TENANT_MEMBERSHIP_VALIDATOR (default: None)​

Dotted path to callable(request, tenant_id) -> bool. Called before session or request.tenant tenant IDs are applied.

DJANGO_RLS = {
    "ALLOW_SESSION_TENANT": True,
    "TENANT_MEMBERSHIP_VALIDATOR": "myapp.security.user_belongs_to_tenant",
}

REGISTERED_CONTEXT_KEYS (default: [])​

Extra session variable names (without the rls. prefix) cleared on connection reset and clear_rls_context(). user_id and tenant_id are always registered.

DJANGO_RLS = {
    "REGISTERED_CONTEXT_KEYS": ["department_id", "role"],
}

RESET_CONTEXT_ON_CONNECT (default: True)​

Clear registered RLS session variables when Django opens a pooled database connection. Prevents stale identity from leaking across requests.

AUDIT_LOG (default: False)​

Emit structured rls_context_set / rls_context_clear log events when context changes. Useful for security audits.

DEBUG (default: False)​

Enable verbose debug logging inside django-rls.

Production hardening example​

DJANGO_RLS = {
    "REQUIRE_CONTEXT": True,
    "AUDIT_LOG": True,
    "STRICT_MIGRATE_RLS": True,
    "ALLOW_SESSION_TENANT": False,
    "RESET_CONTEXT_ON_CONNECT": True,
    "REGISTERED_CONTEXT_KEYS": ["department_id"],
}

Run python manage.py audit_rls in CI before deploy to verify ENABLE + FORCE ROW LEVEL SECURITY on every RLSModel table.

Database engine​

Use the RLS-aware PostgreSQL backend:

DATABASES = {
    "default": {
        "ENGINE": "django_rls.backends.postgresql",
        "NAME": "mydb",
        # ...
    }
}

SQLite and other backends do not enforce native PostgreSQL RLS.