[QUESTION] How to use serializers from other domains for nested relationships

While trying to implement the structure that you have posed, I have reached a point where I wonder what would be the best course of action:

In my use case, I have two domains, one that includes a User model, and another one that includes an Outfit model. I’m also using django serializers atm as they provide some helpers to ease development.

For my use case, I want to return the User model nested inside the Outfit model, but that would cross models between domains. What would be the best approach here?

from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from .models.look import Outfit

class UserSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ['username', 'email', 'url']

class OutfitSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    user = UserSerializer()

    class Meta:
        model = Look
        fields = ['shortcode', 'user', 'url']

[phalt]

This is a good question, and one my team has struggled with solving too. I briefly looked at some solutions around the internet. Things like protocol buffers try and solve this by setting up a shared resource of schemas for data. My only concern with that is: you then have the problem of controlling the distribution of that protocol buffer.

We solved this (we === the team at my current employment) by having our own UserSerializer in our domain. Because it was “our” version of the User, even though the User came from a different domain.

[phalt]

@pedrogimenez very good idea. I like it! Can you share any code examples? I can promote this issue into a question for prosperity.