Hooks

On loading, Wagtail will search for any app with the file wagtail_hooks.py and execute the contents. This provides a way to register your own functions to execute at certain points in Wagtail’s execution, such as when a page is saved or when the main menu is constructed.

Note

Hooks are typically used to customise the view-level behaviour of the Wagtail admin and front-end. For customisations that only deal with model-level behaviour - such as calling an external service when a page or document is added - it is often better to use Django’s signal mechanism (see also: Wagtail signals), as these are not dependent on a user taking a particular path through the admin interface.

Registering functions with a Wagtail hook is done through the @hooks.register decorator:

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('name_of_hook')
def my_hook_function(arg1, arg2...)
    # your code here

Alternatively, hooks.register can be called as an ordinary function, passing in the name of the hook and a handler function defined elsewhere:

hooks.register('name_of_hook', my_hook_function)

If you need your hooks to run in a particular order, you can pass the order parameter:

@hooks.register('name_of_hook', order=1)  # This will run after every hook in the wagtail core
def my_hook_function(arg1, arg2...)
    # your code here

@hooks.register('name_of_hook', order=-1)  # This will run before every hook in the wagtail core
def my_other_hook_function(arg1, arg2...)
    # your code here

@hooks.register('name_of_hook', order=2)  # This will run after `my_hook_function`
def yet_another_hook_function(arg1, arg2...)
    # your code here

The available hooks are listed below.

Admin modules

Hooks for building new areas of the admin interface (alongside pages, images, documents and so on).

construct_homepage_panels

Add or remove panels from the Wagtail admin homepage. The callable passed into this hook should take a request object and a list of panels, objects which have a render() method returning a string. The objects also have an order property, an integer used for ordering the panels. The default panels use integers between 100 and 300. Hook functions should modify the panels list in-place as required.

from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

from wagtail.core import hooks

class WelcomePanel:
    order = 50

    def render(self):
        return mark_safe("""
        <section class="panel summary nice-padding">
          <h3>No, but seriously -- welcome to the admin homepage.</h3>
        </section>
        """)

@hooks.register('construct_homepage_panels')
def add_another_welcome_panel(request, panels):
    panels.append(WelcomePanel())

construct_homepage_summary_items

Add or remove items from the ‘site summary’ bar on the admin homepage (which shows the number of pages and other object that exist on the site). The callable passed into this hook should take a request object and a list of SummaryItem objects to be modified as required. These objects have a render() method, which returns an HTML string, and an order property, which is an integer that specifies the order in which the items will appear.

construct_main_menu

Called just before the Wagtail admin menu is output, to allow the list of menu items to be modified. The callable passed to this hook will receive a request object and a list of menu_items, and should modify menu_items in-place as required. Adding menu items should generally be done through the register_admin_menu_item hook instead - items added through construct_main_menu will be missing any associated JavaScript includes, and their is_shown check will not be applied.

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('construct_main_menu')
def hide_explorer_menu_item_from_frank(request, menu_items):
  if request.user.username == 'frank':
    menu_items[:] = [item for item in menu_items if item.name != 'explorer']

describe_collection_contents

Called when Wagtail needs to find out what objects exist in a collection, if any. Currently this happens on the confirmation before deleting a collection, to ensure that non-empty collections cannot be deleted. The callable passed to this hook will receive a collection object, and should return either None (to indicate no objects in this collection), or a dict containing the following keys:

count

A numeric count of items in this collection

count_text

A human-readable string describing the number of items in this collection, such as “3 documents”. (Sites with multi-language support should return a translatable string here, most likely using the django.utils.translation.ngettext function.)

url (optional)

A URL to an index page that lists the objects being described.

register_account_menu_item

Add an item to the “Account settings” page within the Wagtail admin. The callable for this hook should return a dict with the keys url, label and help_text. For example:

from django.urls import reverse
from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('register_account_menu_item')
def register_account_delete_account(request):
    return {
        'url': reverse('delete-account'),
        'label': 'Delete account',
        'help_text': 'This permanently deletes your account.'
    }

register_admin_menu_item

Add an item to the Wagtail admin menu. The callable passed to this hook must return an instance of wagtail.admin.menu.MenuItem. New items can be constructed from the MenuItem class by passing in a label which will be the text in the menu item, and the URL of the admin page you want the menu item to link to (usually by calling reverse() on the admin view you’ve set up). Additionally, the following keyword arguments are accepted:

name:an internal name used to identify the menu item; defaults to the slugified form of the label. classnames:additional classnames applied to the link, used to give it an icon attrs:additional HTML attributes to apply to the link order:an integer which determines the item’s position in the menu

For menu items that are only available to superusers, the subclass wagtail.admin.menu.AdminOnlyMenuItem can be used in place of MenuItem.

MenuItem can be further subclassed to customise the HTML output, specify JavaScript files required by the menu item, or conditionally show or hide the item for specific requests (for example, to apply permission checks); see the source code (wagtail/admin/menu.py) for details.

from django.urls import reverse

from wagtail.core import hooks
from wagtail.admin.menu import MenuItem

@hooks.register('register_admin_menu_item')
def register_frank_menu_item():
  return MenuItem('Frank', reverse('frank'), classnames='icon icon-folder-inverse', order=10000)

register_admin_urls

Register additional admin page URLs. The callable fed into this hook should return a list of Django URL patterns which define the structure of the pages and endpoints of your extension to the Wagtail admin. For more about vanilla Django URLconfs and views, see url dispatcher.

from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.conf.urls import url

from wagtail.core import hooks

def admin_view(request):
  return HttpResponse(
    "I have approximate knowledge of many things!",
    content_type="text/plain")

@hooks.register('register_admin_urls')
def urlconf_time():
  return [
    url(r'^how_did_you_almost_know_my_name/$', admin_view, name='frank'),
  ]

register_group_permission_panel

Add a new panel to the Groups form in the ‘settings’ area. The callable passed to this hook must return a ModelForm / ModelFormSet-like class, with a constructor that accepts a group object as its instance keyword argument, and which implements the methods save, is_valid, and as_admin_panel (which returns the HTML to be included on the group edit page).

register_settings_menu_item

As register_admin_menu_item, but registers menu items into the ‘Settings’ sub-menu rather than the top-level menu.

construct_settings_menu

As construct_main_menu, but modifies the ‘Settings’ sub-menu rather than the top-level menu.

register_reports_menu_item

As register_admin_menu_item, but registers menu items into the ‘Reports’ sub-menu rather than the top-level menu.

construct_reports_menu

As construct_main_menu, but modifies the ‘Reports’ sub-menu rather than the top-level menu.

register_admin_search_area

Add an item to the Wagtail admin search “Other Searches”. Behaviour of this hook is similar to register_admin_menu_item. The callable passed to this hook must return an instance of wagtail.admin.search.SearchArea. New items can be constructed from the SearchArea class by passing the following parameters:

label:text displayed in the “Other Searches” option box. name:an internal name used to identify the search option; defaults to the slugified form of the label. url:the URL of the target search page. classnames:additional CSS classnames applied to the link, used to give it an icon. attrs:additional HTML attributes to apply to the link. order:an integer which determines the item’s position in the list of options.

Setting the URL can be achieved using reverse() on the target search page. The GET parameter ‘q’ will be appended to the given URL.

A template tag, search_other is provided by the wagtailadmin_tags template module. This tag takes a single, optional parameter, current, which allows you to specify the name of the search option currently active. If the parameter is not given, the hook defaults to a reverse lookup of the page’s URL for comparison against the url parameter.

SearchArea can be subclassed to customise the HTML output, specify JavaScript files required by the option, or conditionally show or hide the item for specific requests (for example, to apply permission checks); see the source code (wagtail/admin/search.py) for details.

from django.urls import reverse
from wagtail.core import hooks
from wagtail.admin.search import SearchArea

@hooks.register('register_admin_search_area')
def register_frank_search_area():
    return SearchArea('Frank', reverse('frank'), classnames='icon icon-folder-inverse', order=10000)

register_permissions

Return a QuerySet of Permission objects to be shown in the Groups administration area.

filter_form_submissions_for_user

Allows access to form submissions to be customised on a per-user, per-form basis.

This hook takes two parameters:

• The user attempting to access form submissions
• A QuerySet of form pages

The hook must return a QuerySet containing a subset of these form pages which the user is allowed to access the submissions for.

For example, to prevent non-superusers from accessing form submissions:

from wagtail.core import hooks


@hooks.register('filter_form_submissions_for_user')
def construct_forms_for_user(user, queryset):
    if not user.is_superuser:
        queryset = queryset.none()

    return queryset

Editor interface

Hooks for customising the editing interface for pages and snippets.

register_rich_text_features

Rich text fields in Wagtail work with a list of ‘feature’ identifiers that determine which editing controls are available in the editor, and which elements are allowed in the output; for example, a rich text field defined as RichTextField(features=['h2', 'h3', 'bold', 'italic', 'link']) would allow headings, bold / italic formatting and links, but not (for example) bullet lists or images. The register_rich_text_features hook allows new feature identifiers to be defined - see Limiting features in a rich text field for details.

insert_editor_css

Add additional CSS files or snippets to the page editor.

from django.templatetags.static import static
from django.utils.html import format_html

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('insert_editor_css')
def editor_css():
    return format_html(
        '<link rel="stylesheet" href="{}">',
        static('demo/css/vendor/font-awesome/css/font-awesome.min.css')
    )

insert_global_admin_css

Add additional CSS files or snippets to all admin pages.

from django.utils.html import format_html
from django.templatetags.static import static

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('insert_global_admin_css')
def global_admin_css():
    return format_html('<link rel="stylesheet" href="{}">', static('my/wagtail/theme.css'))

insert_editor_js

Add additional JavaScript files or code snippets to the page editor.

from django.utils.html import format_html, format_html_join
from django.templatetags.static import static

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('insert_editor_js')
def editor_js():
    js_files = [
        'demo/js/jquery.raptorize.1.0.js',
    ]
    js_includes = format_html_join('\n', '<script src="{0}"></script>',
        ((static(filename),) for filename in js_files)
    )
    return js_includes + format_html(
        """
        <script>
            $(function() {
                $('button').raptorize();
            });
        </script>
        """
    )

insert_global_admin_js

Add additional JavaScript files or code snippets to all admin pages.

from django.utils.html import format_html

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('insert_global_admin_js')
def global_admin_js():
    return format_html(
        '<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/three.js/r74/three.js"></script>',
    )

Editor workflow

Hooks for customising the way users are directed through the process of creating page content.

after_create_page

Do something with a Page object after it has been saved to the database (as a published page or a revision). The callable passed to this hook should take a request object and a page object. The function does not have to return anything, but if an object with a status_code property is returned, Wagtail will use it as a response object. By default, Wagtail will instead redirect to the Explorer page for the new page’s parent.

from django.http import HttpResponse

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('after_create_page')
def do_after_page_create(request, page):
    return HttpResponse("Congrats on making content!", content_type="text/plain")

before_create_page

Called at the beginning of the “create page” view passing in the request, the parent page and page model class.

The function does not have to return anything, but if an object with a status_code property is returned, Wagtail will use it as a response object and skip the rest of the view.

Unlike, after_create_page, this is run both for both GET and POST requests.

This can be used to completely override the editor on a per-view basis:

from wagtail.core import hooks

from .models import AwesomePage
from .admin_views import edit_awesome_page

@hooks.register('before_create_page')
def before_create_page(request, parent_page, page_class):
    # Use a custom create view for the AwesomePage model
    if page_class == AwesomePage:
        return create_awesome_page(request, parent_page)

after_delete_page

Do something after a Page object is deleted. Uses the same behaviour as after_create_page.

before_delete_page

Called at the beginning of the “delete page” view passing in the request and the page object.

Uses the same behaviour as before_create_page.

after_edit_page

Do something with a Page object after it has been updated. Uses the same behaviour as after_create_page.

before_edit_page

Called at the beginning of the “edit page” view passing in the request and the page object.

Uses the same behaviour as before_create_page.

after_copy_page

Do something with a Page object after it has been copied passing in the request, page object and the new copied page. Uses the same behaviour as after_create_page.

before_copy_page

Called at the beginning of the “copy page” view passing in the request and the page object.

Uses the same behaviour as before_create_page.

after_move_page

Do something with a Page object after it has been moved passing in the request and page object. Uses the same behaviour as after_create_page.

before_move_page

Called at the beginning of the “move page” view passing in the request, the page object and the destination page object.

Uses the same behaviour as before_create_page.

register_page_action_menu_item

Add an item to the popup menu of actions on the page creation and edit views. The callable passed to this hook must return an instance of wagtail.admin.action_menu.ActionMenuItem. The following attributes and methods are available to be overridden on subclasses of ActionMenuItem:

order:an integer (default 100) which determines the item’s position in the menu. Can also be passed as a keyword argument to the object constructor. The lowest-numbered item in this sequence will be selected as the default menu item; as standard, this is “Save draft” (which has an order of 0). label:the displayed text of the menu item get_url:a method which returns a URL for the menu item to link to; by default, returns None which causes the menu item to behave as a form submit button instead name:value of the name attribute of the submit button, if no URL is specified is_shown:a method which returns a boolean indicating whether the menu item should be shown; by default, true except when editing a locked page template:path to a template to render to produce the menu item HTML get_context:a method that returns a context dictionary to pass to the template render_html:a method that returns the menu item HTML; by default, renders template with the context returned from get_context Media:an inner class defining Javascript and CSS to import when this menu item is shown - see Django form media

The get_url, is_shown, get_context and render_html methods all accept a request object and a context dictionary containing the following fields:

view:name of the current view: 'create', 'edit' or 'revisions_revert' page:For view = 'edit' or 'revisions_revert', the page being edited parent_page:For view = 'create', the parent page of the page being created user_page_permissions:  a UserPagePermissionsProxy object for the current user, to test permissions against

from wagtail.core import hooks
from wagtail.admin.action_menu import ActionMenuItem

class GuacamoleMenuItem(ActionMenuItem):
    name = 'action-guacamole'
    label = "Guacamole"

    def get_url(self, request, context):
        return "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNJdJIwCF_Y"


@hooks.register('register_page_action_menu_item')
def register_guacamole_menu_item():
    return GuacamoleMenuItem(order=10)

construct_page_action_menu

Modify the final list of action menu items on the page creation and edit views. The callable passed to this hook receives a list of ActionMenuItem objects, a request object and a context dictionary as per register_page_action_menu_item, and should modify the list of menu items in-place.

@hooks.register('construct_page_action_menu')
def remove_submit_to_moderator_option(menu_items, request, context):
    menu_items[:] = [item for item in menu_items if item.name != 'action-submit']

The construct_page_action_menu hook is called after the menu items have been sorted by their order attributes, and so setting a menu item’s order will have no effect at this point. Instead, items can be reordered by changing their position in the list, with the first item being selected as the default action. For example, to change the default action to Publish:

@hooks.register('construct_page_action_menu')
def make_publish_default_action(menu_items, request, context):
    for (index, item) in enumerate(menu_items):
        if item.name == 'action-publish':
            # move to top of list
            menu_items.pop(index)
            menu_items.insert(0, item)
            break

construct_page_listing_buttons

Modify the final list of page listing buttons in the page explorer. The callable passed to this hook receives a list of Button objects, a request object and a context dictionary as per register_page_action_menu_item, and should modify the list of menu items in-place.

@hooks.register('construct_page_listing_buttons')
def remove_page_listing_button_item(buttons, page, page_perms, is_parent=False, context=None):
    if is_parent:
        buttons.pop() # removes the last 'more' dropdown button on the parent page listing buttons

construct_wagtail_userbar

Add or remove items from the wagtail userbar. Add, edit, and moderation tools are provided by default. The callable passed into the hook must take the request object and a list of menu objects, items. The menu item objects must have a render method which can take a request object and return the HTML string representing the menu item. See the userbar templates and menu item classes for more information.

from wagtail.core import hooks

class UserbarPuppyLinkItem:
    def render(self, request):
        return '<li><a href="http://cuteoverload.com/tag/puppehs/" ' \
            + 'target="_parent" class="action icon icon-wagtail">Puppies!</a></li>'

@hooks.register('construct_wagtail_userbar')
def add_puppy_link_item(request, items):
    return items.append( UserbarPuppyLinkItem() )

Admin workflow

Hooks for customising the way admins are directed through the process of editing users.

after_create_user

Do something with a User object after it has been saved to the database. The callable passed to this hook should take a request object and a user object. The function does not have to return anything, but if an object with a status_code property is returned, Wagtail will use it as a response object. By default, Wagtail will instead redirect to the User index page.

from django.http import HttpResponse

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('after_create_user')
def do_after_page_create(request, user):
    return HttpResponse("Congrats on creating a new user!", content_type="text/plain")

before_create_user

Called at the beginning of the “create user” view passing in the request.

The function does not have to return anything, but if an object with a status_code property is returned, Wagtail will use it as a response object and skip the rest of the view.

Unlike, after_create_user, this is run both for both GET and POST requests.

This can be used to completely override the user editor on a per-view basis:

from django.http import HttpResponse

from wagtail.core import hooks

from .models import AwesomePage
from .admin_views import edit_awesome_page

@hooks.register('before_create_user')
def before_create_page(request):
    return HttpResponse("A user creation form", content_type="text/plain")

after_delete_user

Do something after a User object is deleted. Uses the same behaviour as after_create_user.

before_delete_user

Called at the beginning of the “delete user” view passing in the request and the user object.

Uses the same behaviour as before_create_user.

after_edit_user

Do something with a User object after it has been updated. Uses the same behaviour as after_create_user.

before_edit_user

Called at the beginning of the “edit user” view passing in the request and the user object.

Uses the same behaviour as before_create_user.

Choosers

construct_page_chooser_queryset

Called when rendering the page chooser view, to allow the page listing QuerySet to be customised. The callable passed into the hook will receive the current page QuerySet and the request object, and must return a Page QuerySet (either the original one, or a new one).

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('construct_page_chooser_queryset')
def show_my_pages_only(pages, request):
    # Only show own pages
    pages = pages.filter(owner=request.user)

    return pages

construct_document_chooser_queryset

Called when rendering the document chooser view, to allow the document listing QuerySet to be customised. The callable passed into the hook will receive the current document QuerySet and the request object, and must return a Document QuerySet (either the original one, or a new one).

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('construct_document_chooser_queryset')
def show_my_uploaded_documents_only(documents, request):
    # Only show uploaded documents
    documents = documents.filter(uploaded_by_user=request.user)

    return documents

construct_image_chooser_queryset

Called when rendering the image chooser view, to allow the image listing QuerySet to be customised. The callable passed into the hook will receive the current image QuerySet and the request object, and must return an Image QuerySet (either the original one, or a new one).

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('construct_image_chooser_queryset')
def show_my_uploaded_images_only(images, request):
    # Only show uploaded images
    images = images.filter(uploaded_by_user=request.user)

    return images

Page explorer

construct_explorer_page_queryset

Called when rendering the page explorer view, to allow the page listing QuerySet to be customised. The callable passed into the hook will receive the parent page object, the current page QuerySet, and the request object, and must return a Page QuerySet (either the original one, or a new one).

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('construct_explorer_page_queryset')
def show_my_profile_only(parent_page, pages, request):
    # If we're in the 'user-profiles' section, only show the user's own profile
    if parent_page.slug == 'user-profiles':
        pages = pages.filter(owner=request.user)

    return pages

register_page_listing_buttons

Add buttons to the actions list for a page in the page explorer. This is useful when adding custom actions to the listing, such as translations or a complex workflow.

This example will add a simple button to the listing:

from wagtail.admin import widgets as wagtailadmin_widgets

@hooks.register('register_page_listing_buttons')
def page_listing_buttons(page, page_perms, is_parent=False):
    yield wagtailadmin_widgets.PageListingButton(
        'A page listing button',
        '/goes/to/a/url/',
        priority=10
    )

The priority argument controls the order the buttons are displayed in. Buttons are ordered from low to high priority, so a button with priority=10 will be displayed before a button with priority=20.

register_page_listing_more_buttons

Add buttons to the “More” dropdown menu for a page in the page explorer. This works similarly to the register_page_listing_buttons hook but is useful for lesser-used custom actions that are better suited for the dropdown.

This example will add a simple button to the dropdown menu:

from wagtail.admin import widgets as wagtailadmin_widgets

@hooks.register('register_page_listing_more_buttons')
def page_listing_more_buttons(page, page_perms, is_parent=False):
    yield wagtailadmin_widgets.Button(
        'A dropdown button',
        '/goes/to/a/url/',
        priority=60
    )

The priority argument controls the order the buttons are displayed in the dropdown. Buttons are ordered from low to high priority, so a button with priority=10 will be displayed before a button with priority=60.

Buttons with dropdown lists

The admin widgets also provide ButtonWithDropdownFromHook, which allows you to define a custom hook for generating a dropdown menu that gets attached to your button.

Creating a button with a dropdown menu involves two steps. Firstly, you add your button to the register_page_listing_buttons hook, just like the example above. Secondly, you register a new hook that yields the contents of the dropdown menu.

This example shows how Wagtail’s default admin dropdown is implemented. You can also see how to register buttons conditionally, in this case by evaluating the page_perms:

from wagtail.admin import widgets as wagtailadmin_widgets

@hooks.register('register_page_listing_buttons')
def page_custom_listing_buttons(page, page_perms, is_parent=False):
    yield wagtailadmin_widgets.ButtonWithDropdownFromHook(
        'More actions',
        hook_name='my_button_dropdown_hook',
        page=page,
        page_perms=page_perms,
        is_parent=is_parent,
        priority=50
    )

@hooks.register('my_button_dropdown_hook')
def page_custom_listing_more_buttons(page, page_perms, is_parent=False):
    if page_perms.can_move():
        yield wagtailadmin_widgets.Button('Move', reverse('wagtailadmin_pages:move', args=[page.id]), priority=10)
    if page_perms.can_delete():
        yield wagtailadmin_widgets.Button('Delete', reverse('wagtailadmin_pages:delete', args=[page.id]), priority=30)
    if page_perms.can_unpublish():
        yield wagtailadmin_widgets.Button('Unpublish', reverse('wagtailadmin_pages:unpublish', args=[page.id]), priority=40)

The template for the dropdown button can be customised by overriding wagtailadmin/pages/listing/_button_with_dropdown.html. The JavaScript that runs the dropdowns makes use of custom data attributes, so you should leave data-dropdown and data-dropdown-toggle in the markup if you customise it.

Page serving

before_serve_page

Called when Wagtail is about to serve a page. The callable passed into the hook will receive the page object, the request object, and the args and kwargs that will be passed to the page’s serve() method. If the callable returns an HttpResponse, that response will be returned immediately to the user, and Wagtail will not proceed to call serve() on the page.

from django.http import HttpResponse

from wagtail.core import hooks

@hooks.register('before_serve_page')
def block_googlebot(page, request, serve_args, serve_kwargs):
    if request.META.get('HTTP_USER_AGENT') == 'GoogleBot':
        return HttpResponse("<h1>bad googlebot no cookie</h1>")

Document serving

before_serve_document

Called when Wagtail is about to serve a document. The callable passed into the hook will receive the document object and the request object. If the callable returns an HttpResponse, that response will be returned immediately to the user, instead of serving the document. Note that this hook will be skipped if the WAGTAILDOCS_SERVE_METHOD setting is set to direct.