FlaskDash starter app v3.0

This code base serves as a starting point for writing your next Flask application.

It's based on the awesome work of Ling Thio and includes the open source CoreUI v5 admin Bootstrap 5 theme and a number of enhancements to the base Flask starter app including basic user management and a separate view file for API code.

• Tested on Python 3.13
• Well organized directories with lots of comments
  • app
    • commands
    • controllers
    • models
    • static
    • templates
  • tests
• Includes test framework (pytest and tox)
• Includes database migration framework (Flask-Migrate / alembic)
• Sends error emails to admins for unhandled exceptions

• Upgraded from CoreUI v4 (Bootstrap 4) to CoreUI v5 (Bootstrap 5)
• Replaced jQuery with vanilla JavaScript throughout
• Replaced Highcharts with Chart.js v4 for dashboard charts
• Replaced font-based icon libraries (Font Awesome, Simple Line Icons) with CoreUI SVG icon sprites (free.svg, brand.svg, flag.svg)
• Replaced perfect-scrollbar with SimpleBar
• Dark/light/auto color mode support via CoreUI v5's built-in theme switcher
• Removed all legacy static assets (Bootstrap 4, jQuery, Highcharts, Popper.js, Pace, old icon fonts)
• Breadcrumbs now rendered in the sticky header via a Jinja2 breadcrumb block
• Flash message dismissal now uses data-coreui-dismiss="alert" (no JavaScript required)

We assume that you have git and Python 3.13 installed.

# Clone the code repository into ~/dev/my_app
mkdir -p ~/dev
cd ~/dev
git clone https://github.com/twintechlabs/flaskdash.git my_app

# Create a virtual environment and activate it
cd ~/dev/my_app
python3.13 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

# Install required Python packages
pip install -r requirements.txt

Edit the app/local_settings.py file and set the MAIL_... settings to match your SMTP provider.

You should also set a strong, unique value for SECURITY_PASSWORD_SALT in local_settings.py. Do not use the default value in production.

# Create DB tables and populate the roles and users tables
flask init-db

# Start the Flask development web server
flask run

Point your web browser to http://localhost:5000/

You can make use of the following seed users:

• email member@example.com with password Password1
• email admin@example.com with password Password1

Gunicorn is included in requirements.txt. To run in production:

gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:5000 "app:create_app()"

Or use unicorn.py as the entry point:

gunicorn unicorn:app

When you change a model, generate and apply a migration:

flask db migrate -m "Description of change"
flask db upgrade

If you are upgrading an existing database from v1.x, you must run a migration to add the fs_uniquifier column required by Flask-Security-Too:

flask db migrate -m "Add fs_uniquifier to users"
flask db upgrade

pytest tests/

# With coverage:
pytest tests/ --cov=app

FlaskDash has Flask-Session built in, configured to use the SQLAlchemy backend by default. The sessions table is created automatically by flask init-db.

You can change the backend in local_settings.py by setting SESSION_TYPE to redis, filesystem, or other supported backends.

Usage example:

session['key'] = 'value'
val = session.get('key', 'not set')

If you make changes to models and run into DB schema issues during development, delete the SQLite DB file app.sqlite and re-run flask init-db.

• CoreUI v5
• Bootstrap 5
• Chart.js
• SimpleBar
• Flask
• Flask-Login
• Flask-Migrate
• Flask-Security-Too
• Flask-SQLAlchemy
• Flask-Session
• Flask-WTF

• Matt Hogan - matt AT twintechlabs DOT io
• Ling Thio -- ling.thio AT gmail DOT com

Flask-User-starter-app was used as a starting point for this code repository.