Django Template Discovery Management Command

Your proposal for a management command to list all available templates is a valuable idea that could help developers troubleshoot TemplateDoesNotExist errors more efficiently.

Current Template Loading System

Based on the Django documentation, the template loading system follows a specific search algorithm:

1. Django searches through each directory specified in the TEMPLATES setting's DIRS option
2. It checks each template engine in the order they're defined
3. For subdirectory templates, it follows the same pattern with the full path

For example, with this configuration:

PYTHONCopied
TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "DIRS": [
            "/home/html/example.com",
            "/home/html/default",
        ],
    },
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.jinja2.Jinja2",
        "DIRS": [
            "/home/html/jinja2",
        ],
    },
]

When searching for a template, Django follows a specific order through these directories.

Benefits of a Template Discovery Command

A showtemplates command would:

1. Help developers understand which templates are available
2. Show the exact search paths Django is using
3. Make it easier to diagnose template inheritance issues
4. Provide clarity on template engine selection

Implementation Considerations

If you were to integrate Jack Linke's implementation, you might consider:

1. Ensuring it works with all template engines (Django templates, Jinja2, etc.)
2. Adding filtering options (by app, by engine, etc.)
3. Including verbose output that shows the full resolution path
4. Providing options to test specific template lookups

Similar Management Command Precedents

Django has been adding more developer-friendly management commands over time:

• The showmigrations command helps visualize migration status
• The upcoming show_urls/listurls command will help with URL debugging
• The inspectdb command helps with database introspection

A showtemplates command would fit well within this pattern of developer tools.

This seems like a worthwhile addition to Django that would improve the developer experience, especially for those working with complex template hierarchies.