Backend Development¶

The Meet backend is a Django 5.x application written in Python 3.13+.

Tech stack¶

Component	Technology
Framework	Django 5.x + Django REST Framework
Language	Python 3.13+
Package manager	`uv`
Auth	mozilla-django-oidc
LiveKit integration	`livekit-api` (Python SDK)
Async tasks	Celery
Testing	pytest + pytest-django
Linting	Ruff

Running the backend¶

# Start the backend container (dev mode with hot reload)
docker compose up -d app-dev

# Django shell
docker compose exec app-dev python manage.py shell

# Apply migrations
docker compose exec app-dev python manage.py migrate

# Create superuser
docker compose exec app-dev python manage.py createsuperuser

Settings¶

The backend uses django-configurations. The settings class is selected via DJANGO_CONFIGURATION:

Development - debug mode, relaxed security
Demo - production-like with demo data
Production - full production settings

All settings live in src/backend/meet/settings.py as a single file using django-configurations class inheritance.

Key models¶

# core/models.py

class Room(models.Model):
    id = models.UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid.uuid4)
    slug = models.SlugField(unique=True)
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    access_level = models.CharField(...)  # public, authenticated, restricted
    configuration = models.JSONField(default=dict)
    created_by = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)

class Recording(models.Model):
    id = models.UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid.uuid4)
    room = models.ForeignKey(Room, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    status = models.CharField(...)  # initiated, active, stopped, saved
    mode = models.CharField(...)    # screen_recording, transcript
    key = models.CharField(...)     # S3 object key (path in bucket)

After model changes, create and apply migrations:

docker compose exec app-dev python manage.py makemigrations
docker compose exec app-dev python manage.py migrate

API views¶

Views use Django REST Framework ViewSets:

class RoomViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    serializer_class = RoomSerializer
    permission_classes = [IsAuthenticated, IsRoomMemberOrPublic]

    def get_queryset(self):
        return Room.objects.filter(
            Q(access_level="public") | Q(accesses__user=self.request.user)
        )

LiveKit token generation¶

The backend generates short-lived JWTs for clients:

from livekit import api

token = (
    api.AccessToken(settings.LIVEKIT_CONFIGURATION["api_key"],
                    settings.LIVEKIT_CONFIGURATION["api_secret"])
        .with_identity(str(user.id))
        .with_name(user.full_name)
    .with_grants(api.VideoGrants(room_join=True, room=room.slug))
    .to_jwt()
)

Celery tasks¶

Celery is used for async background operations. Currently the only task is file deletion cleanup (core/tasks/file.py):

from core.tasks._task import task

@task
def process_file_deletion(file_id):
    """Delete a file from the database and from object storage."""
    file = File.objects.get(id=file_id)
    default_storage.delete(file.file_key)
    file.delete()

Note on recording notifications: email notifications for completed recordings are sent synchronously in the storage webhook handler (core/recording/event/notification.py), not via Celery. CELERY_ENABLED is only needed when FILE_UPLOAD_ENABLED=True to handle file deletion cleanup asynchronously.

Running tests¶

# All backend tests
make test-back

# Specific file
docker compose exec app-dev pytest core/tests/test_rooms.py

# With coverage
docker compose exec app-dev pytest --cov=meet --cov-report=html

# Single test
docker compose exec app-dev pytest core/tests/test_rooms.py::TestRoomCreate::test_authenticated

Code style¶

# Lint and format (Ruff)
make lint-back

# Or directly
docker compose exec app-dev ruff check .
docker compose exec app-dev ruff format .

Adding dependencies¶

docker compose exec app-dev uv add <package>
# pyproject.toml and uv.lock are updated automatically

Django admin¶

Available at /admin/. Key sections: - Rooms - list, configure rooms - Recordings - view recording state and storage keys - Users - manage accounts - Applications - external app integrations