Tracking progress with IntFlag

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Problem Link to heading

Imagine you are integrating a new product into your system. This product must have complete details and specifications before being published. But that information is added in separate steps, and not necessarily in order. How do you check that every step has been completed?

A naive solution would be to use a boolean variable for each step:

class ProductTrack(models.Model):
 product = models.ForeignKey(Product, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
 has_specification = models.BooleanField(default=False)
 has_detail = models.BooleanField(default=False)
 
 def is_complete(self):
 return self.has_specification and self.has_detail

But what if you need to add more steps? Or remove one? Every change means touching the model, running database migrations and adjusting the logic.

Enum on cassiobotaro

Tracking progress with IntFlag

The Problem Link to heading