Django settings SECRET_KEY

Question

I have the following structure of my project

project
--project
----settings
------base.py
------development.py
------testing.py
------secrets.json
--functional_tests
--manage.py

development.py and testing.py 'inherit' from base.py

from .base import *

So, where I have problems

I have the SECRET_KEY for Django in secrets.json, which is stored in settings folder

I load this key like this (saw this in "Two scoops of Django")

import json
from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured

key = "secrets.json"
with open(key) as f:
    secrets = json.loads(f.read())

def get_secret(setting, secret=secrets):
    try:
        return secrets[setting]
    except KeyError:
        error_msg = "Set the {} environment variable".format(setting)
        raise ImproperlyConfigured(error_msg)

SECRET_KEY = get_secret("SECRET_KEY")

But when I run python manage.py runserver

Blah-blah-blah
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: The SECRET_KEY setting must not be empty.

After some investigations I got the following

1. If I put print(os.getcwd()) inside base.py I get /media/grimel/Home/project/ instead of /media/grimel/Home/project/project/settings/
2. This code works only if I replace:
   key = "secrets.json"
   by
   key = "project/settings/secrets.json"

Personally, I don't like this solution.
So, questions:

1. Why, for base.py current working directory is so confusing?
2. What's a better approach in solving this problem?

Answer 1

The working directory is based on how you run the program, in your case python manage.py runserver hints that your working directory is the one containing manage.py . Beware that this can vary when run as WSGI script or otherwise, so your concern with using key = "project/settings/secrets.json" is valid.

One solution is to use the value of __file__ in base.py , likely to be "project/settings/base.py" . I would use something like

import os
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
key = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "secrets.json")

Answer 2

To make life simpler why not move secrets.json to your project root and reference

import os    
key = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "secrets.json")

directly. This is platform independent saving you the need to override BASE_DIR at all in your settings file. Don't forget to add your settings file to version control.