Prisma CLI Migrate Deploy Skill for Cursor

prisma migrate deploy

Applies pending migrations in production/staging environments.

Command

prisma migrate deploy

What It Does

• Applies all pending migrations from prisma/migrations/
• Updates _prisma_migrations table
• Does NOT generate new migrations
• Does NOT run seed scripts
• Safe for CI/CD and production

Options

| Option | Description |

|--------|-------------|

| --schema | Custom path to your Prisma schema |

| --config | Custom path to your Prisma config file |

When to Use

• Production deployments
• Staging environments
• CI/CD pipelines
• Any non-development environment

Examples

Basic deployment

prisma migrate deploy

In CI/CD pipeline

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Apply migrations
  run: npx prisma migrate deploy
  env:
    DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}

Docker deployment

# Run migrations before starting app
CMD npx prisma migrate deploy && node dist/index.js

Comparison with migrate dev

| Feature | migrate dev | migrate deploy |

|---------|-------------|----------------|

| Creates migrations | Yes | No |

| Applies migrations | Yes | Yes |

| Detects drift | Yes | No |

| Prompts for input | Yes | No |

| Uses shadow database | Yes | No |

| Safe for production | No | Yes |

| Resets on issues | Prompts | Fails |

Production Workflow

• Development: Create migrations locally

   prisma migrate dev --name add_feature

• Commit: Include migration files in version control

   git add prisma/migrations
   git commit -m "Add feature migration"

• Deploy: Apply in production

   prisma migrate deploy

Error Handling

Failed migration

If a migration fails, migrate deploy exits with error. The failed migration is marked as failed in _prisma_migrations.

To fix:

• Resolve the issue (fix SQL, database state, etc.)
• Mark as resolved: prisma migrate resolve --applied <migration_name>
• Re-run: prisma migrate deploy

Check status first

prisma migrate status

Shows pending and applied migrations before deploying.

Configuration

Ensure prisma.config.ts has the production database URL:

import 'dotenv/config'
import { defineConfig, env } from 'prisma/config'

export default defineConfig({
  datasource: {
    url: env('DATABASE_URL'),
  },
})

Best Practices

• Always run migrate status before migrate deploy in CI
• Have a rollback plan (backup before migrations)
• Test migrations in staging first
• Never use migrate dev in production