1-modifying-db-schema.md

Guide: Modifying Database Schema

Modify Prisma Schema

To modify the underlying schema to be able to load new data, you will need to update the Prisma Schema. You can find information on how to write Prisma schemas here.

Ensure Database Server is Running

Make sure your database server is running. You can do this by running docker ps to see if the container is up. If not, you can run docker compose up -d db from the main directory to run it in the background.

Regenerate Prisma Types

To update the Typescript types for the Prisma Client, from within the backend-server/ directory, run

npm run generate-prisma

Push Schema Changes to the DB Server

In general, there are two types of pushes you can do, both executed from within backend-server/:

1. npx prisma db push which will modify the database, but not persist changes in code. This is useful for prototyping
2. npx prisma migrate dev which will modify the database, and generate a migration file that can be committed to code, enabling the schema changes to be tracked and state to be rebuilt.

See Prisma Migrate for detailed information on different types of pushes.