Too many Prisma migration files

Question

I'm currently working on a project that we are using Prisma 2 and postgreSQL as database support. From my understanding, whenever I made changes to the schema.prisma file and I want to migrate the changes to the database, I run prisma migrate dev locally. Then I will push the auto created migration files under migration folder to Github, and then our repo will run prisma migrate deploy to the staging or production server.

So, my concern is, each time I run prisma migrate dev, a new migration file will be created in migrations folder. So, there will be a lot of migration files under the migration folder with the development of the project. Is that what supposed to happen? Or is there a better way?

Thank you for your help. I'm pretty new to Prisma 2 and still trying to find the correct way to work with it. BTW I think Prisma 1 was easier to use :)

user_4526204 · Answer

I’d recommend using prisma db push while developing locally and generating the migration with prisma migrate dev only when you think the schema changes are good to go. More at https://www.prisma.io/docs/guides/database/prototyping-schema-db-push

user_8855844 · Answer

So, there will be a lot of migration files under the migration folder with the development of the project. Is that what supposed to happen?

Yes, this is exactly what's supposed to happen. The migration file contains the history of all changess to your Prisma schema (and underlying database tables/configuration), so they all need to be retained.

I'm not sure if you could go around this somehow, but it's certainly not the recommended way to be using migrate.

You can find a list of best practices regarding migration in the Prisma migrate article in the docs.

Too many Prisma migration files

2 Answers