Understanding Prisma Migrate

In this section

📄️ Overview

Does not apply for MongoDBInstead of migrate dev and related commands, use db push for MongoDB.

📄️ Mental model

This guide provides a conceptual overview of database migrations using Prisma Migrate when working with relational databases. It covers: what database migrations are, their value, and what Prisma Migrate is and how you can evolve your database schema with Prisma Migrate in different environments.

📄️ About migration histories

This page explains how Prisma ORM uses migration histories to track changes to your schema.

📄️ About the shadow database

The shadow database is a second, temporary database that is created and deleted automatically\ each time you run prisma migrate dev and is primarily used to detect problems* such as schema drift or potential data loss of the generated migration.

📄️ Limitations and known issues

The following limitations apply to Prisma Migrate.

📄️ Legacy Prisma Migrate

Important! This page documents legacy Prisma Migrate (Experimental) available in version 2.12.0 and earlier. Prisma Migrate is available in version 2.13.0 and Generally Available in 2.19.0.