Custom Staticfiles App Hides Source Assets

[wesleyboar]

Note

Generated by AI. Edited by @wesleyboar.

Summary

A custom staticfiles AppConfig (TaccStaticFilesConfig) and global ignore patterns cause source assets (for example, files under */src/*.css) to be excluded from Django's staticfiles processing. This breaks local debugging, collectstatic expectations, and can silently hide files.

Files / Locations

• taccsite_cms/django/contrib/staticfiles_custom/apps.py (custom AppConfig and ignore patterns)
• taccsite_cms/settings.py (STATICFILES settings reference / usage)

Problems / Impact

• collectstatic and dev servers may not expose source files; developers cannot debug or reference source CSS/JS.
• Unexpected missing files in different environments (dev vs prod).
• Makes contributor onboarding harder because the source/build split is enforced silently.

Proposed (Backward-Compatible) Approach

1. Prefer the standard django.contrib.staticfiles AppConfig by default.
2. If custom ignore patterns are desired, make them configurable via a setting (e.g., TACCSITE_STATICFILES_IGNORE_PATTERNS = [...]). If the setting is absent, do not apply any ignore rules.
3. Add startup warning when ignore patterns are enabled, and document how to include src during development.
4. Consider a small management command manage.py staticfiles-check to show which files would be collected given current ignore rules.

Minimal Migration Plan / Tests

• Add conditional logic in TaccStaticFilesConfig to read TACCSITE_STATICFILES_IGNORE_PATTERNS and only register ignores when set.
• Tests: run collectstatic --no-input in a test environment and assert files from static/.../src are present when ignore patterns are unset; assert they are absent when set.