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I'm new to Django and I can't find anywhere which instance variables do class-based generic views have. For example, I know that you can use self.request or self.kwargs, but is there any list of which other variables can I use? Maybe I can set any variable I need in the dispatch function, but what are the defaults?

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    One way to pass extra instance variables is to pass extra kwargs into as_view, see __init__ method of the View class. Commented Sep 13, 2013 at 19:14

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I agree that this is not documented as well as it could be.

The overview of class-based generic views says this:

Various useful things are stored on self; as well as the request (self.request) this includes the positional (self.args) and name-based (self.kwargs) arguments captured according to the URLconf.

Then, the reference documentation lists the attributes created for each specific view. Under DetailView, for example, it says:

While this view is executing, self.object will contain the object that the view is operating upon.

Another reference you might want to consult is Classy Class-Based Views.

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I've never found a better way than just reading the code. The documentation is silent about enough aspects of class-based views that I don't trust it to be complete.
@Peter: Reading the code is certainly a good strategy. One nice thing about the ccbv site I mentioned is that each page links directly to the source code of the corresponding view.

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