How can I load test data into AppEngine automatically?

Question

I'd like to automatically load some test data into the AppEngine datastore when a local copy is run by one of my team's developers. I know that the bulk uploader lets you do this from the command line, but I'm looking for something automatic. Inevitably we will forget to load data when we clear our test copies of the datastore.

Currently I'm just checking for a known entity when the main page is loaded, and calling a function to insert the data when that entity isn't found. This seems wasteful--it gets called every time anybody hits this particular page.

The ideal solution would be something that won't affect the deployed version of the app at appspot.com and won't add messy code to a central code path.

Answer 1

Why not just automate the bulk loader? It's a command line tool, as you point out, so trivial to run from your build process (or whatever other trigger you want).