Server Push

Push state updates to connected LiveView clients from anywhere in your backend: Celery tasks, management commands, cron jobs, Django signals, and more.

Quick Start

from djust import push_to_view

# Update state on all connected clients
push_to_view("myapp.views.DashboardView", state={"visitors": 42})

# Call a handler method on all connected clients
push_to_view("myapp.views.ChatView", handler="handle_new_message",
              payload={"text": "Hello from the server!"})

A pushed handler must start with handle_ or be decorated with @event_handler. Any other name is blocked (logged as server_push: blocked handler) and never called.

Push from Celery Tasks

The most common use case is pushing updates from background workers. Since push_to_view is synchronous, it works directly inside any Celery task.

from celery import shared_task
from djust import push_to_view

@shared_task
def refresh_metrics():
    count = Order.objects.filter(status="pending").count()
    push_to_view(
        "dashboard.views.MetricsView",
        state={"pending_orders": count},
    )

Push from Management Commands

Useful for deployment notifications, maintenance windows, or system alerts.

from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from djust import push_to_view

class Command(BaseCommand):
    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        push_to_view(
            "alerts.views.AlertView",
            handler="handle_alert",
            payload={"level": "warning", "message": "Deploy starting"},
        )

Async Push

For async contexts (async views, ASGI middleware, async Celery tasks), use apush_to_view:

from djust import apush_to_view

async def notify_clients():
    await apush_to_view("myapp.views.FeedView", state={"new_items": True})

Periodic Tick

For views that need to self-update on a schedule (dashboards, live feeds), set tick_interval and override handle_tick():

from djust import LiveView

class StockTickerView(LiveView):
    template_name = "ticker.html"
    tick_interval = 2000  # milliseconds

    def mount(self, request, **kwargs):
        self.price = get_current_price()

    def handle_tick(self):
        self.price = get_current_price()

The view re-renders and sends VDOM patches to all connected clients after each tick. No external task runner needed.

The Broadcast Pattern

When multiple clients edit shared state (collaborative editing, shared dashboards), push each change to the view so every peer receives it. The session that made the change does not need special handling: when a handler pushes to its own view, the originating session automatically skips its own broadcast (#1677), because its direct event response already reflects the new state.

from djust import LiveView, push_to_view
from djust.decorators import event_handler

class SharedNoteView(LiveView):
    template_name = "note.html"

    def mount(self, request, **kwargs):
        self.content = Note.objects.get(pk=kwargs["pk"]).content

    @event_handler
    def update_content(self, value: str = "", **kwargs):
        self.content = value
        Note.objects.filter(pk=self.kwargs["pk"]).update(content=value)
        push_to_view(
            "notes.views.SharedNoteView",
            handler="handle_broadcast",
            payload={"content": value},
        )

    def handle_broadcast(self, content: str = "", **kwargs):
        """Receive broadcast from a peer."""
        self.content = content

The receiver is named handle_broadcast because pushed handlers must start with handle_ (or be @event_handler-decorated). The sender skips its own broadcast, and peers receive it and update their state normally.

Scoped Push: One Room, Not Every Room

push_to_view(view_path, ...) reaches every session of the view class. For a view that serves many independent rooms (a game room, a document, a chat channel), a room's broadcast would then reach every session in every room. Each of those sessions runs the handler only to find the message is for another room, and sends a no-op frame back. The work grows with rooms × sessions.

Give each session a push scope instead, and push to one scope:

from djust import LiveView, push_to_view

class RoomView(LiveView):
    template_name = "room.html"

    def mount(self, request, room="lobby", **kwargs):
        self.room = room
        self.push_scope = room  # this session receives pushes for its room

    def handle_refresh(self, **kwargs):
        self.players = load_players(self.room)

# Anywhere (a handler, a Celery task, a background loop):
push_to_view("games.views.RoomView", handler="handle_refresh", scope="room-42")

• push_scope is a str or an int, a list, tuple or set of them (a session can be in up to 64 scopes), or None, the default, which means view-wide pushes only.
• Set it in mount(). Reassigning it moves the session. djust joins the new scopes and leaves the dropped ones at the end of the turn that changed it: an event handler, a server-push hook, handle_tick or handle_info.
• push_scope is ordinary view state. It is restored with the session on reconnect, and a template can read it.
• scope= takes one str or int. push_to_view and apush_to_view both accept it.
• A push without scope is unchanged: it still reaches every session of the view, including sessions that set a push_scope.
• Scopes belong to one view path. scope="room-42" for RoomView does not reach another view class whose sessions use the same scope; push to each view path.
• Scoped groups are ordinary channel-layer groups. They work across processes with the Redis channel layer, like view-wide push.
• WebSocket sessions only. SSE and HTTP-only sessions receive no server push, scoped or not.
• Presence follows. In a view that also uses PresenceMixin, a join or leave then wakes only the sessions that share the presence key, not every room (v1.3+; see Presence).

Event Sequencing

Server pushes, ticks, and async completions are all treated as background updates. If a user event (click, submit, etc.) is in flight when a server push arrives, the push is buffered on the client and applied after the user event round-trip completes. This prevents version interleaving where a background update would silently discard the user's action.

On the server side, server_push acquires a render lock and yields to in-progress user events. A push that arrives while the session is busy (a user event or background result in progress, or the render lock held) is queued. As soon as the lock frees, every queued push is applied in order and the view renders once. So the last push of a change always reaches every viewer.

This is automatic and requires no developer action.

How It Works

1. When a client connects via WebSocket, the consumer joins a channel-layer group named djust_view_<view_path> (dots replaced with underscores). After mount it also joins one group per push_scope value, djust_scope_<digest of view path and scope>.
2. push_to_view() sends a message to the view's group, or to the scope's group when scope= is given, via Django Channels.
3. Each connected consumer receives the message, applies state updates and/or calls the handler, re-renders, and sends DOM patches to the client.

Requirements

• Django Channels with a channel layer backend (Redis recommended for production).
• The CHANNEL_LAYERS setting must be configured in settings.py:

CHANNEL_LAYERS = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "channels_redis.core.RedisChannelLayer",
        "CONFIG": {
            "hosts": [{"address": "redis://127.0.0.1:6379", "socket_timeout": 20}],
        },
    },
}

Keep socket_timeout above 5 s; 20 is recommended. redis-py 8 lowered its default socket_timeout to 5 s, the same as channels_redis' blocking read, so without a longer timeout idle WebSockets drop every few seconds (django/channels_redis#422). Don't use None: a half-open connection then hangs until TCP keepalive notices. See Deployment: Channel Layer.

API Reference

push_to_view(view_path, *, state=None, handler=None, payload=None, scope=None)

Synchronous. Sends an update to all clients connected to view_path, or with scope, only to those whose view's push_scope includes it.

apush_to_view(view_path, *, state=None, handler=None, payload=None, scope=None)

Async version of push_to_view. Same parameters.

LiveView.push_scope

The scope or scopes this session receives scoped pushes for: a str, an int, a list, tuple or set of them (at most 64), or None (the default). Usually set in mount(); reassigning it in a handler, push hook, handle_tick or handle_info moves the session.

LiveView.tick_interval

Class attribute. Set to an integer (milliseconds) to enable periodic ticking.

LiveView.handle_tick()

Override to update state on each tick. Called every tick_interval ms.