Correct way to delete objects in django when using many-to-many?

Question

Django

There are two models:

class Target(models.Model):
    created_dt = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    updated_dt = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
    user = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='targets')
    title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    live = models.ManyToManyField(LiveLot, related_name='targets', blank=True)

class Live(models.Model):
    created_dt = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    updated_dt = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
    closed_dt = models.DateTimeField()

As you can see, the connection between them is not required. But if necessary, it can be.
The problem occurs when deleting a Live object, if it has a link to a Target.
I tried to delete using the usual delete:
obj.delete()
An error occurs

psycopg2.IntegrityError: update or delete on table "blabla" violates foreign key constraint "blablabla" on table "app_targe
t_lots"
DETAIL:  Key (id)=(32845) is still referenced from table "app_target_live"

Clearly, the integrity error is due to the presence of a non-remote link.
Solved it like this:

obj.targets.clear()
obj.delete()

But maybe there is a more beautiful or correct method so that when deleting, the links from the intermediate table are immediately deleted?

Answer 1

There are no useful solutions on this topic on the Internet, although in my opinion there should be at least a paragraph in the Django documentation. One of the solutions is to make a through model in which to specify the cascade deletion explicitly in the ForeignKey description. But at the same time, M2M fields begin to behave a little differently (regarding the signals sent and the appearance in the admin panel). I would hang the m2m cleanup on pre_delete and not suffer.