Automatic Prisma migrations
How to make changes to your PlanetScale database schema while using Prisma, a next-generation Node.js and TypeScript ORM
This document has been updated to include the recommended Prisma and PlanetScale workflow, specifically
the recommendation to use prisma db push
instead of prisma migrate dev
with shadow branches. Also, you previously needed to turn on the ability to automatically
copy the Prisma migration metadata. You no longer need to do this. Read more below.
Introduction
In this tutorial, we're going to learn how to do Prisma migrations in PlanetScale as part of your deployment process using prisma db push
.
Quick introduction to Prisma's db push
From a high level, Prisma's db push
introspects your PlanetScale database to infer and execute the changes required to make your database schema reflect the state of your Prisma schema. When prisma db push
is run, it will ensure the schema in the PlanetScale branch you are currently connected to matches your current Prisma schema.
We recommend prisma db push
over prisma migrate dev
for the following reasons:
PlanetScale provides Online Schema Changes that are deployed automatically when you merge a deploy request and prevents blocking schema changes that can lead to downtime. This is different from the typical Prisma workflow which uses prisma migrate
in order to generate SQL migrations for you based on changes in your Prisma schema. When using PlanetScale with Prisma, the responsibility of applying the changes is on the PlanetScale side. Therefore, there is little value to using prisma migrate
with PlanetScale.
Also, the migrations table created when prisma migrate
runs can also be misleading since PlanetScale does the actual migration when the deploy request is merged, not when prisma migrate
is run which only updates the schema in the development database branch. You can still see the history of your schema changes in PlanetScale.
Prerequisites
- Add Prisma to your project using
npm install prisma --save-dev
oryarn add prisma --dev
(depending on what package manager you prefer). - Run
npx prisma init
inside of your project to create the initial files needed for Prisma. - Install the PlanetScale CLI.
- Authenticate the CLI with the following command:
Execute your first Prisma db push
Prisma migrations follow the PlanetScale non-blocking schema change workflow. First, the schema is applied to a development branch and then the development branch is merged into the main
production database.
Let's begin with an example flow for running Prisma migrations in PlanetScale:
- Create a new prisma-playground database:
- Connect to the database branch:
This step assumes you created a new PlanetScale database and the main
branch
has not been promoted to production yet. You will need to create a new development branch if
the main
branch has been promoted to production.
- Update your
prisma/schema.prisma
file with the following schema:
- Update your
.env
file:
- In another terminal, use the
db push
command to push the schema defined inprisma/schema.prisma
:
Unlike the prisma migrate dev
command, it will not create a migrations folder containing a SQL file with the SQL used to update the schema in your PlanetScale database. PlanetScale will be tracking your migrations in this workflow.
You can learn more about the prisma db push
command in the
Prisma docs.
After db push
is successful, you can see the table created in your terminal. For example, to see the Post
table:
Use the exit
command to exit the MySQL shell.
Or you can see it in the PlanetScale UI under the Schema tab in your main
branch.
- Now that the initial schema has been added, promote your
main
branch to production status:
Execute succeeding Prisma migrations in PlanetScale
Our first example migration flow went well, but what happens when you need to run further changes to your schema?
Let's take a look:
- Create a new development branch from
main
calledadd-subtitle-to-posts
:
- Close the proxy connection to your
main
branch (if still open) and connect to the newadd-subtitle-to-posts
development branch:
- In the
prisma/schema.prisma
file, update thePost
model:
Add a new subtitle
field to Post
:
- Run
db push
again to update the schema in PlanetScale:
- Open a deploy request for your
add-subtitle-to-posts
branch, so that you can deploy these changes tomain
.
You can complete the deploy request either in the web app or with the pscale deploy-request
command.
- Once the deploy request is merged, you can see the results in your main branch's
Post
table:
What's next?
Now that you've successfully conducted your first automatic Prisma migration in PlanetScale and know how to handle future migrations, it's time to deploy your application with a PlanetScale database! Let's learn how to deploy an application with a PlanetScale database to Vercel.
Need help?
Get help from PlanetScale's support team, or join our GitHub Discussion board to see how others are using PlanetScale.