[Fixed]-Django: If I call is_valid() on a form do I still have to clean the data in forms.py?

is_valid() checks the form’s errors property which (assuming it hasn’t already been run) calls full_clean() which calls _clean_form() which calls clean() so there is no need to call the method directly.

keep feeling like self.cleaned_data.get is redundant because I call is_valid() in views.py

I’m not 100% sure on your objection, but note that cleaned_data will be empty unless clean() completes successfully, so your search function won’t work properly without the check. You are correct that you shouldn’t need to use get there for any required fields, but since you don’t have required fields it’s still a better bet.