Django's ORM supports querying from a specific database (when multiple are defined in your project) via the .using() function for filter-based operations.
e.g. MyModel.objects.filter(name='Bob').using('my_non_default_database')
How would you do the equivalent when creating new records, via the class MyModel() or shortcut like get_or_create()?
using is a method on the MyModel.objects manager, so you can do
MyModel.objects.using('my_non_default_database').get_or_create(name="Bob") If you have a MyModel instance, you can use the using keyword to specify the database to save to. The django docs point out some gotchas.
my_model = MyModel(name="Bob") my_model.save(using='my_non_default_database') using is just part of the standard query chain. So, you can use it anywhere before the query is sent to the DB. get_or_create, unlike filter, is atomic: when you call it, it does it's thing immediately, so you just need to call using before that.
MyModel.objects.using('my_non_default_database').get_or_create(name='Bob') 