Django admin

django.contrib.admin is themed with the AdminLTE shell out of the box: the topbar plus a sidebar auto-generated from your registered apps/models. The admin sidebar reuses the same menu builder + filter pipeline as the app sidebar, so it honours per-user view permissions and active state. The native admin change-list / change-form content renders inside the shell.

Enable

Put django_adminlte4 before django.contrib.admin in INSTALLED_APPS so its templates/admin/* overrides take loader precedence:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "django_components",
    "django_adminlte4",          # ← before contrib.admin
    "django.contrib.admin",
    # …
]

That's it — /admin/ is themed, including a standalone AdminLTE login page.

Customise

ADMINLTE = {
    "admin_brand": "Acme Ops",        # sidebar brand text (defaults to site_header)
    "admin_menu": [                    # optional: replace the auto app/model menu
        {"text": "Dashboard", "url": "/admin/", "icon": "bi bi-speedometer"},
        {"text": "Users", "url": "/admin/auth/user/", "icon": "bi bi-people"},
    ],
}

When admin_menu is unset, the menu is built from admin.site.get_app_list(request) (one treeview group per app, one leaf per model) and run through the filter pipeline. Override the {% adminlte_admin_menu %} tag's output by supplying admin_menu.

What's themed

admin/base.html (the AdminLTE chrome), admin/base_site.html (title + branding) and a standalone admin/login.html. The change-list / change-form keep Django's native content markup within the AdminLTE frame.