> mostly because it auto-imports all your models

Django does this by default now. Since 5.0 if I'm remembering it correctly.

In the default shell? I've definitely started new django projects since 2023 and I seem to remember always having to use shell_plus for that, though maybe thats just become something I automatically add without thinking

Edit: Yep, you're right, wow thats pretty big for me

shell_plus is still superior because it also imports other useful stuff and allows adding custom list of additional imports.

Also, shell_plus has --print-sql option for easy construction and debugging of ORM queries.