Django Watchman Configuration Issue

The issue you're experiencing is related to how Django's WatchmanReloader interacts with Watchman's configuration. There are a few important points to understand:

The Problem

Django's WatchmanReloader doesn't directly use Watchman's .watchmanconfig file for determining which directories to watch. Instead, Django has its own mechanism for determining which files to monitor for changes.

Solution Approaches

Here are a few approaches to solve your issue:

1. Use Django's WATCHMAN_IGNORE_DIRS Setting

You can configure Django to ignore specific directories by adding a setting to your settings.py file:

PYTHONCopied
# In settings.py
WATCHMAN_IGNORE_DIRS = [
    '.git',
    '.idea',
    'venv',
    'migrations',
    '/usr/local/lib/python3.12',
]

2. Use Environment Variables

Django's autoreloader also respects the PYTHONPATH environment variable. You can set it to only include your project directories:

BASHCopied
PYTHONPATH=/path/to/your/project python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

3. Use Django's --noreload Option

If you don't need auto-reloading at all, you can disable it:

BASHCopied
python manage.py runserver --noreload 0.0.0.0:8000

4. Create a Custom Autoreloader

For more control, you could create a custom autoreloader by extending Django's WatchmanReloader class and overriding the watched_roots() method to exclude specific directories.

Additional Notes

• Make sure your Watchman configuration is in the correct location (project root)
• The .watchmanconfig file is primarily used by Watchman itself, not by Django's integration
• Django's WatchmanReloader determines what to watch based on loaded Python modules

Try implementing the WATCHMAN_IGNORE_DIRS setting first, as it's the most straightforward solution for your specific issue.