Django "ProgrammingError: relation does not exist" (unmigrated DB) in CI

By Kaveh Alemi·Latchkey

Postgres reports "relation does not exist" when Django queries a table that was never created. In CI this means migrations did not run (or ran against a different database) before the query or test executed.

What this error means

A query or test fails with "django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation \"app_order\" does not exist" against a freshly created CI database.

django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "app_order" does not exist
LINE 1: SELECT ... FROM "app_order" ...

Common causes

Migrations did not run before the query

The job created an empty database but skipped manage.py migrate, so the tables the query needs do not exist.

Querying a non-test database

A management command ran against the app database directly without migrations, instead of the migrated test database the runner builds.

How to fix it

Run migrations before querying

1. Add a manage.py migrate step before any command that queries the database.
2. Let manage.py test or pytest-django build and migrate the test database.
3. Confirm the same DATABASES settings are used by migrate and the test step.

python manage.py migrate --noinput
python manage.py test --noinput

Let the test runner own migrations

pytest-django creates and migrates the test database for you when the db fixture is requested.

import pytest

@pytest.mark.django_db
def test_orders():
    assert Order.objects.count() == 0

How to prevent it

• Run migrate before any step that queries the database.
• Use one DATABASES config for migrate and tests.
• Let pytest-django or manage.py test manage the test schema.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

References

• Python documentation
• pip documentation
• GitHub Actions documentation