How can I disable Django's csrf protection only in certain cases?

Modify urls.py

If you manage your routes in urls.py, you can wrap your desired routes with csrf_exempt() to exclude them from the CSRF verification middleware.

for instance,

from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
urlpatterns = patterns(
    # ...
    # Will exclude `/api/v1/test` from CSRF 
    url(r'^api/v1/test', csrf_exempt(TestApiHandler.as_view()))
    # ...
)

---

Alternatively, as a Decorator

Some may find the use of the @csrf_exempt decorator more suitable for their needs

for instance,

from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
from django.http import HttpResponse

@csrf_exempt
def my_view(request):
    return HttpResponse('Hello world')

There is a section of Django's CSRF Protection documentation titled View needs protection for one path which describes a solution. The idea is to use @csrf_exempt on the whole view, but when the API client header is not present or invalid, then call a function annotated with @csrf_protect.

If you are you using class base view (CBV) and want to use the csrf_exempt decorator you will need to use the method decorator.

from django.utils.decorators import method_decorator
from django.views import View
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt

@method_decorator(csrf_exempt, name='dispatch')
class MyView(View):
    def post(self, request):
        pass  # my view code here