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Database Migrations

Atlas ERP uses Prisma Migrate to track and apply changes to the database schema.

Making Schema Changes

  1. Open packages/database/prisma/schema.prisma.
  2. Make your desired changes (add models, add fields, create relations).
  3. Run the migration command from the root of the project:
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cd packages/database
pnpm prisma migrate dev --name <descriptive-name-of-change>

Example:

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pnpm prisma migrate dev --name add_task_priority_field

What migrate dev does:

  • Compares the schema to your local database.
  • Generates a SQL migration file in prisma/migrations/.
  • Applies the SQL to your local database.
  • Automatically runs prisma generate to update the TypeScript client.

Applying Migrations in Production

When deploying to production, you should never run migrate dev. Instead, run:

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pnpm prisma migrate deploy

This command strictly executes the SQL files in the prisma/migrations directory that haven't been applied yet. It does not look at the schema.prisma file to generate new SQL.

(Our deployment pipelines, e.g., on Render or Vercel, run this command automatically before starting the application).

Resetting the Database (Local Only)

If your local database gets into a bad state, or you switch branches and migrations conflict, you can reset it.

Warning

This will drop the database, recreate it, run all migrations from scratch, and execute the seed script. Never run this in production.

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pnpm prisma migrate reset

Prototyping Without Migrations

If you are just playing around locally and don't want to generate SQL migration files yet, you can use db push:

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pnpm prisma db push

This forces the database to match your schema.prisma without tracking the history. Use this sparingly, as it makes collaboration with other developers harder if schema changes aren't tracked via migrations.