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Migrations

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Development and production workflows for evolving your Prisma schema safely.

Prisma has two ways to apply schema changes. Use the right one depending on your environment.

Development — db push

db push syncs your schema to the database directly, without creating a migration file. Fast for iteration, not safe for production.

pnpm db:push

Use this when:

  • You're iterating quickly and the data doesn't matter yet
  • You haven't launched to users
  • You're resetting the DB regularly with pnpm db:reset

db push can drop columns without warning if you rename or remove a field. Never use it on a production database with real user data.

Production — migrate

migrate dev creates a SQL migration file and applies it. The file is committed to git and applied in production with migrate deploy.

Create a migration

pnpm db:migrate
# Prisma prompts for a name, e.g. "add_onboarding_completed"

This creates prisma/migrations/20240101_add_onboarding_completed/migration.sql and applies it to your local database.

Apply in production

pnpm db:migrate:deploy
# Applies any pending migrations that haven't run yet

Run this in your deployment pipeline — before the app starts. On Vercel, add it to the build command:

# vercel build command
pnpm db:migrate:deploy && pnpm build

Scripts reference

pnpm db:push             # sync schema to DB (dev only)
pnpm db:migrate          # create + apply migration (dev)
pnpm db:migrate:deploy   # apply pending migrations (prod)
pnpm db:studio           # open Prisma Studio
pnpm db:reset            # drop DB + re-push + seed (dev only)

These are defined in package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "db:push": "prisma db push",
    "db:migrate": "prisma migrate dev",
    "db:migrate:deploy": "prisma migrate deploy",
    "db:studio": "prisma studio",
    "db:reset": "prisma migrate reset --force"
  }
}

Workflow for a schema change

Edit the schema

Open prisma/schema.prisma and make your changes — add a field, new model, relation, etc.

Generate the Prisma client

pnpm db:push   # dev: apply + regenerate client
# or
pnpm db:migrate   # dev: create migration + apply + regenerate client

Prisma regenerates the TypeScript client automatically after every push or migrate.

Update your code

TypeScript will immediately surface any breaking changes — fields you removed, types that changed. Fix them before committing.

Commit the migration file

If you used db:migrate, commit the generated file in prisma/migrations/. This is your audit trail and how production gets updated.

git add prisma/
git commit -m "feat: add onboarding_completed to user"

Deploy

Your CI/CD runs pnpm db:migrate:deploy before starting the app. Prisma checks which migrations have already run (tracked in _prisma_migrations) and applies only the new ones.

Better Auth and migrations

Better Auth's tables are defined in schema.prisma alongside your models. When you add a new Better Auth plugin (e.g. twoFactor, passkey), run:

npx better-auth migrate   # generates the SQL
pnpm db:migrate           # applies it via Prisma

Or add the columns to schema.prisma manually and run pnpm db:push / pnpm db:migrate as usual.

SchemaEvery Prisma model in launch.now — what it stores and how it relates to the rest of the app.SeedingPopulate your development database with realistic test data using the seed script.