Prisma (migrations)

Schema definition

The schema is defined in core/prisma/schema/schema.prisma .

See the type documenation for defining more complex types.

Migrations

Creating new migrations

To modify the database schema, you need to create a migration.

1. Run pnpm migrate-dev
2. Enter the name of the migration (e.g. add-new-field)
3. Say yes every time (this will create a new migration file in the core/prisma/migrations directory)
4. Modify the migration file to do things like data-migrations if necessary.

You can also create an empty migration, by running

pnpm -F core prisma migrate -- --create-only

write your migration, then

pnpm -F core migrate-dev

Migrations in production

Migrations are run before the container starts. This is currently (2025-06-05) defined here

https://github.com/pubpub/platform/blob/main/infrastructure/terraform/modules/deployment/main.tf#L69-L75 

History Tables

We have a number of tables that exist just to record the history of a table, along with the entity that made the change. They serve both as a way to audit changes and as a way to reconstruct the value of an entity (usually a Pub) at a point in time.

How to create one

1. Run pnpm db:generate-history-table
2. Enter the name of the original table (e.g. pubs)
3. Say yes every time
4. Run pnpm db:migrate-dev (probably twice for good measure)
5. Tadah! You should have a new table called pubs_history

This will also add a new column to the original table called lastModifiedBy of type LastModifiedBy. This will probably mean you need to update some application level code in order to actually use it.

The tables are stored in the core/prisma/schema/history-tables directory.