Tips on using Prisma

1. Install prisma and @prisma/client differently:

npm install prisma --save-dev
npm install @prisma/client

2. Set up a new Prisma project and specify MySQL as the datasource provider:

npx prisma init --datasource-provider mysql

3. For some unknow reason, this won't work:

import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';

But this works for me:

import { PrismaClient } from '../src/generated/prisma/index.js';

4. Add this fragment to package.json:

  "prisma": {
    "seed": "node prisma/seed.js"
  },

5. To further speed up models creation, paste in JSON object and ask AI. For example: user from {JSON} Placeholder

{
    "id": 1,
    "name": "Leanne Graham",
    "username": "Bret",
    "email": "Sincere@april.biz",
    "address": {
      "street": "Kulas Light",
      "suite": "Apt. 556",
      "city": "Gwenborough",
      "zipcode": "92998-3874",
      "geo": {
        "lat": "-37.3159",
        "lng": "81.1496"
      }
    },
    "phone": "1-770-736-8031 x56442",
    "website": "hildegard.org",
    "company": {
      "name": "Romaguera-Crona",
      "catchPhrase": "Multi-layered client-server neural-net",
      "bs": "harness real-time e-markets"
    }
  }

And in return:

model User {
  id       Int    @id @default(autoincrement())
  name     String
  username String
  email    String  @unique
  phone    String
  website  String
  address  Address? @relation(fields: [addressId], references: [id])
  addressId Int?
  company  Company? @relation(fields: [companyId], references: [id])
  companyId Int?
}

model Address {
  id      Int    @id @default(autoincrement())
  street  String
  suite   String
  city    String
  zipcode String
  geo     Geo?   @relation(fields: [geoId], references: [id])
  geoId   Int?
}

model Geo {
  id  Int    @id @default(autoincrement())
  lat String
  lng String
}

model Company {
  id         Int    @id @default(autoincrement())
  name       String
  catchPhrase String
  bs         String
}

Paste in schema.prisma and run commands:

npx prisma format 
npx prisma validate

Strange Enough! For some unknown reason npx prisma format can fix foreign key reference errors and turn out to be a perfectly valid schema.

6. To create tables in target database with:

npx prisma db push

Or in more sophisticated way:

npx prisma migrate dev --name initial_import

Epilogue

"the ridiculous confusion which, in some circumstances, can determine the course of a man’s life."
The Trial by Franz Kafka

As you can see, Prisma is on my tech stack not because I am in favor of ORM, to be honest, I craft and run SQL statements more. The underplaying reason is to secure our investment, ie. the code. It is catastrophic to migrate backend database for any non-trivial projects. How can one change the horse but stay on saddle? Prisma alleviates to some extent, I believe...

EOF (2025/06/04)