feat(admin): new Django admin dashboard landing page

[marcoacierno]

What

Replaces the stock Django admin index (/admin/ — alphabetical app/model table) with a modern dashboard landing page, rendered as an Astro/React overlay using the existing custom-admin pattern.

Built spec-driven — see specs/django-admin-landing-page.md.

How

Backend (backend/custom_admin/)

• index.py overrides admin.site.index (no AdminSite subclass / re-registration needed).
  • Buckets the ~69 registered models into 9 workflow groups (Program, Schedule & Video, Finance, Sponsors, People, Conference setup, Content & CMS, Comms, System) + an Other catch-all so no model is ever dropped (test-enforced).
  • Builds quick-action links: schedule builder (latest conference), review grants, review submissions.
  • Renders astro/landing.html with JSON-safe groups / all_apps / quick_links context.
• admin.py wires install_custom_index().

Frontend (backend/custom_admin/src/)

• pages/landing.astro passes props via to_json_for_prop.
• components/landing/: root (Base/Apollo + DjangoAdminLayout), dashboard, group-card, quick-actions, stat-card (placeholder), all-models (collapsible fallback), types.

Tests / checks

• 5 pytest tests: grouping, every model exactly once, Other catch-all, quick-link resolution, context JSON-serializable.
• ruff + biome clean (pre-commit passed).

Not done yet

• Stats data — cards show placeholder —; wiring real numbers via /admin/graphql is a deliberate follow-up.
• Browser verification — not run from the worktree (needs full docker-compose up + codegen). Reviewer should confirm /admin/ renders and other proxied Astro pages (schedule-builder etc.) still work, and that pnpm build succeeds.

Open questions

• Group membership tweaks welcome (easy to move models in index.py GROUPS).
• Add more quick actions (e.g. invitation-letter document builder)?

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
pycon	Error		Jun 2, 2026 2:37pm

[claude]

Replaces Django's stock admin index with a custom Astro/React dashboard landing page. The overall approach is consistent with the existing custom-admin pattern.

Error Handling

_latest_schedule_builder_url() has no DB exception handling (index.py ~line 224–230). Conference.objects.order_by('-start').first() runs on every /admin/ hit with no try/except. A transient DB error raises an unhandled OperationalError on the landing page. The existing _safe_reverse helper shows the defensive intent — the DB call deserves the same treatment.

Architecture

GROUPS keyed by object_name alone (index.py lines 21–104) creates a latent collision risk. Two apps can register models with the same object_name (e.g. Page). Django's canonical identifier is app_label.object_name (_meta.label). The existing test test_every_registered_model_appears_exactly_once would detect a collision after the fact, but the key format should prevent it up front.

_model_to_group() is recomputed on every build_groups() call (index.py line 143). GROUPS is a module-level constant that never changes. This reverse-mapping should be built once — either as a module-level constant or with @functools.lru_cache().

install() ordering dependency is undocumented (index.py line 252). admin.site.index = custom_index works because it runs before Django calls get_urls() (which captures self.index in a closure). This is a fragile ordering assumption — it should be documented in the function or moved to AppConfig.ready().

Testing

All tests run as superuser — the admin_request fixture forces is_superuser=True. There is no test for a staff user with limited permissions to verify build_groups handles a partial app_list correctly and doesn't surface unauthorized models.

test_quick_links_resolve_to_urls doesn't assert the schedule builder link (test_index.py line 76–83). _latest_schedule_builder_url() has a fallback to the changelist URL when no Conference exists (which is the case in this test). The fallback path could be asserted.

Performance

build_all_apps and build_groups both iterate app_list and call _clean_model independently (index.py lines 136–168), so _clean_model is called ~2x per model per page load. The cleaned model dicts could be shared between the two functions.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 87.50000% with 7 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 92.50%. Comparing base (5d8f9c3) to head (cc657ff).

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #4665      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   92.52%   92.50%   -0.03%     
==========================================
  Files         359      360       +1     
  Lines       10800    10856      +56     
  Branches      821      829       +8     
==========================================
+ Hits         9993    10042      +49     
- Misses        696      699       +3     
- Partials      111      115       +4     

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[marcoacierno]

/deploy

[marcoacierno]

WIP: