Postpone SECRET_KEY evaluation to the qcluster command execution (#332)

* Suppress ImproperlyConfigured within Conf, allowing the exception to be raised specifically during the 'qcluster' command instead.

This ensures build scripts and workflows can freely execute other Django commands (e.g., 'python manage.py collectstatic') without failing due to a missing/empty secret key.

* Closes #279

Co-authored-by: Tug of Peas <19413623+tugofpeas@users.noreply.github.com>

django_q/conf.py

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from multiprocessing import cpu_count
 from warnings import warn
 
 from django.conf import settings
+from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
 from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
 
 from django_q.queues import Queue
@@ -211,7 +212,12 @@ class Conf:
 
     # Use the secret key for package signing
     # Django itself should raise an error if it's not configured
-    SECRET_KEY = settings.SECRET_KEY
+    # but suppress the exception early to allow other parts of the app to still run.
+    # For example any "python manage.py ..." command still runs even if SECRET_KEY is not set.
+    try:
+        SECRET_KEY = settings.SECRET_KEY
+    except ImproperlyConfigured:
+        SECRET_KEY = None
 
     # The redis stats key
     Q_STAT = f"django_q:{PREFIX}:cluster"

django_q/management/commands/qcluster.py

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import os
 
+from django.conf import settings
 from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
 from django.utils.translation import gettext as _
 
@@ -28,6 +29,8 @@ class Command(BaseCommand):
         )
 
     def handle(self, *args, **options):
+        # Ensure that the cluster starts only if the SECRET_KEY is set, as it is required for signing.
+        settings.SECRET_KEY
         # Set alternative cluster_name before creating the cluster (cluster_name is broker's queue_name, too)
         cluster_name = options.get("cluster_name")
         if cluster_name: