Prisma ORM 8 migrations now ask before they drop your data

Prisma ORM 8 migrations now ask about each model or field they would drop, and you can answer with a rename that keeps the rows. In the Prisma Console, a Prisma Compute deployment now shows its runtime logs, and a preview branch's services and connections can be compared with production. Prisma Composer, the TypeScript description of a Prisma Compute app's services and databases, now reads its settings from the composer section of prisma.config.ts, so a project has one config file, and the old separate file needs to be moved.

Two deadlines from earlier entries still stand: Prisma Postgres Early Access databases are deleted on November 1, 2026, and Accelerate is retired on December 1, 2026. The steps are under "What you need to do" below.

Keep your data when a migration would drop it

When your schema removes a model or a field, prisma migration plan and prisma db update now stop and ask whether each one is a real delete or a rename, before they write anything. Before, a renamed field was planned as a drop and a create, the --confirm flag accepted every such change at once, and the rows were gone after the migration. Now, at your terminal, the command prompts you for each question, and you can also answer up front with flags: --delete Legacy for a model or --delete User.nickname for a field lets the data go, and the new --rename User.name:User.fullName keeps it. A rename keeps the table or column and its rows instead of dropping and recreating it. (#30648, #30638)

npx prisma migration plan --rename User.name:User.fullName --delete Legacy

In CI, where nobody can answer, a command with an open question fails with CLI.CONSENT_REQUIRED and lists the flags to add, so a schema change that drops data fails once and you add the flag to the job. prisma db update also stops and asks when a change lets more people read or write a model's rows, for example when it drops a row-level security policy, and you accept that with --allow <Model>. Dropping an index, a constraint, a check, or a default no longer asks, because no data is lost. On MongoDB, renames are refused for now. The migration plan reference lists each question and its answer.

Prisma ORM 8 is still a release candidate. You need two packages for it, released separately and with different version numbers: the library your app imports, @prisma/orm-postgres, which replaces @prisma/client and is at 8.0.0-rc.17 for this change, and the command-line tool, prisma, at 8.0.0-rc.22. prisma@latest installs the Prisma 8 tool, and prisma@7, which prisma@prev also points at, is Prisma ORM 7. The tool also runs Prisma Compute deploys for every app, including Prisma ORM 7 apps.

Two Prisma ORM 8 words appear throughout this entry. The contract is a generated file that describes your schema, written by prisma contract emit and read by the client and the migration commands, much as prisma generate wrote the client in Prisma ORM 7; "re-emit" means running that command again. Signing a database with prisma db sign --db "$DATABASE_URL" marks it as already matching the contract, so no migration runs against it.

Read runtime logs and compare branches in the Console

A deployment's page in the Prisma Console now shows the output your app writes while it runs, and it updates on its own. You can pause the stream, refresh it, copy it, and jump to the latest line. Before, the page showed the deployment's status, ports, and environment variables, and the logs were only available from the command line with prisma service logs. The Serving live card on the app page has a View runtime logs button that opens the live deployment's logs directly.

The Topology view, which draws a project's services and databases and how they connect, now opens a preview branch with a comparison against production. Services, ports, and connections that the branch adds or removes are highlighted, unchanged parts fade, and a changed value shows its before and after. A toggle turns the comparison off and shows the branch on its own.

Your app also receives two headers on every request it serves. Prisma-Connecting-IP holds the address of the client that made the request, as a single value, and Prisma-Request-ID holds an id for the request that Prisma also returns on the response, so you can match a log line to a request. Any Prisma-* header a client sends is dropped before the request reaches your app, so your code can trust these two.

Share query logic across models and lock the rows you read

Prisma ORM 8 can now define a piece of a query once and apply it to any model that has the right fields. A soft-delete filter, a default sort, or a set of fields to select becomes a function you pass to a collection. In 8.0.0-rc.15 this was called a scope, and 8.0.0-rc.17 renamed it: you build the piece with db.orm.fragment(...) or db.orm.public.Post.fragment(...), and apply it with .with(...). If you subclass a model's collection to add methods such as published(), those methods now survive where, orderBy, and limit, so db.orm.public.Post.where({ userId }).published() compiles. (#30564, #30560, #30635)

const notDeleted = db.orm.public.Post.fragment((posts) =>
  posts.where((p) => p.deletedAt.isNull()),
);

const posts = await db.orm.public.Post.with(notDeleted).orderBy((p) => p.createdAt.desc()).all();

The query fragments reference has two more examples: a soft-delete filter that works on any model with a deletedAt field, and a helper that turns a ?sort= value from a request into a safe orderBy.

A read can also lock the rows it returns, so two workers that pick a job from a queue do not pick the same one: db.orm.public.Job.where((j) => j.state.eq("queued")).forUpdate({ skipLocked: true }).first(). Here db.orm.public.Job is the Job model in the public PostgreSQL schema. The ORM collections and the lower-level SQL query builder, db.sql, both have forUpdate(), forNoKeyUpdate(), forShare(), and forKeyShare(), each with nowait and skipLocked options. They exist only on databases that support them, so they are absent on SQLite. (#30549, #30555)

The release candidates of this week also add the following:

• Invalidate cached reads. The built-in cache middleware, which keeps query results in your app's memory, can now drop an entry on demand: cache.invalidate({ keys: ["posts:home"] }) removes the reads that named that key in cacheAnnotation({ key }). The default store keeps an entry for 60 seconds. (docs, #30530)
• Run code after a transaction commits. Middleware has an afterTransaction hook that runs for each query once the transaction it ran in has committed or rolled back, and tells you whether it was committed, rolled back, or unknown. (#30614)
• Rename a table in a hand-written migration. this.renameTable({ table: "userProfile", to: "UserProfile" }) in a migration made with prisma migration new renames the table and the constraints and indexes named after it, and keeps the rows. (docs, #30331)
• Allow null inside a list. String?[] allows null elements, String[]? allows a null list, and String?[]? allows both. (#30051)
• Give an existing integer column an autoincrement() default. The migration now plans a sequence that starts past the column's current maximum, where it used to plan nothing. (#30606)
• Name the index that backs a relation. @relation(..., index: "post_author_live") tells Prisma ORM 8 which index, unique constraint, or primary key serves the foreign key, so it creates no extra one. prisma contract emit now warns when two named indexes are identical or when a plain index repeats a unique constraint. (#30561)
• Hover, go to definition, and find references in your editor. Hovering a model, field, or attribute in a .prisma file shows its declaration and documentation, and go to definition and find references work across every schema file of the project. The editor also completes the values inside a block such as policy_select. (#30569, #30578, #30567)
• Read more Prisma 6 MongoDB schemas. prisma orm init recognizes a Prisma 6 MongoDB project, and the reader accepts every native type Prisma 6 accepts except DateTime @db.Timestamp. (#30521)

What you need to do

• If you deploy to Prisma Compute, move Composer's settings into prisma.config.ts before your next deploy with prisma@8.0.0-rc.20 or newer. If the Console set up deploys for your repository before October 8, its pull request wrote a prisma-composer.config.mjs file, and that file is no longer read; prisma deploy and prisma dev stop and tell you what to move. Move the extensions and state from the old file into a composer section, and delete the old file: (composer#328)

  import { definePrismaConfig } from "prisma/config";
  import { defineConfig as composer } from "@prisma/composer/config";
  import { nodeBuild } from "@prisma/composer/node/control";
  import { prismaCloud, prismaState } from "@prisma/composer-prisma-cloud/control";
  
  export default definePrismaConfig({
    composer: composer({
      extensions: [prismaCloud(), nodeBuild()],
      state: prismaState(),
    }),
  });

• If a deploy with prisma@8.0.0-rc.22 or newer fails because a package your service imports cannot be found, add dependencies: "external" to that service, as in node({ dir: "build", entry: "server.mjs", dependencies: "external" }). A deploy of a node({ dir, entry }) service now uploads only your build output, which is right for a build that bundles its packages. With "external", the deploy also uploads the packages your build imports from node_modules, as that form did before. (composer#341)

• If you are on a Prisma ORM 8 release candidate older than 8.0.0-rc.15, download data-type-in-contract.ts from the rc.15 upgrade guide, run it with Node in your project root before any other step, then run prisma db sign against every database, as the breaking change about the contract file format below explains. Then replace each --confirm in your scripts, as described above.

• If you are on Prisma ORM 7, your code does not change. Check any script or CI job that installs prisma@latest and change it to prisma@7, because latest is Prisma ORM 8. The two deadlines below may apply to you.

• Prisma Postgres Early Access databases are deleted on November 1, 2026 at 00:00 UTC. The Console shows a notice on each affected project and database. The migration guide walks you through the export and the restore.

• Accelerate is retired on December 1, 2026. If your app connects through a URL that starts with prisma+postgres://accelerate.prisma-data.net, switch to a pooled connection or to the serverless driver before then. If you use Accelerate with your own database, keep your database and connect to it without Accelerate.

Breaking changes between Prisma ORM 8 release candidates

These apply only if you already use a Prisma ORM 8 release candidate and are upgrading to 8.0.0-rc.15, 8.0.0-rc.16, or 8.0.0-rc.17. If you are trying Prisma ORM 8 for the first time, you start on the newest release candidate and can skip this list, and if you are on Prisma ORM 7, nothing here changes your app: the bullets that mention a Prisma 7 schema are about Prisma ORM 8 reading that file. Several bullets end with prisma contract emit and prisma db sign; one run of each after all the other steps is enough. The release notes for rc.15, rc.16, and rc.17 list every change, including the ones that only affect extension authors, and each links an upgrade guide with scripts.

• --confirm no longer consents to data loss. prisma migration plan and prisma db update ask about each model, field, or table they would lose data from, and you answer with --delete or --rename, as described above. Replace each --confirm in scripts and CI. (#30648)
• The contract file format changed, and a contract in the old format is refused with CONTRACT.VALIDATION_FAILED until you run the upgrade script. Upgrade the extensions you use, such as pgvector and PostGIS, in the same step. Then download data-type-in-contract.ts from the rc.15 upgrade guide, run node data-type-in-contract.ts in your project root, which rewrites every contract and migration in your project, and run prisma db sign against every database. Until a database is signed, prisma db migrate refuses with MIGRATION.MARKER_MISMATCH. (#30576, #30051)
• scope is now fragment, and apply is now with. The types Scope, FieldScope, and ScopeFacts are now Fragment, FieldFragment, and FragmentFacts. This applies to the SQL client only. (#30635, #30647)
• A bulk write refuses a limit, offset, cursor, or distinct it would ignore. updateAll, updateAndCount, deleteAll, and deleteAndCount change every row that matches the filter. Before, where(...).limit(10).deleteAll() deleted every matching row. It now throws ORM.ARGUMENT_INVALID. Select the ids first, then delete by id. If your code applies a where only on some code paths, TypeScript now rejects deleteAll() and updateAll() on the result. (#30564, #30560)
• variant() takes the stored value, not the model name. This applies only to schemas that use @@base, Prisma ORM 8's way to store several model variants in one table. For a variant declared with @@base(Task, "bug"), write db.orm.public.Task.variant("bug"). A value the schema does not declare now throws instead of silently reading every variant. (#30577)
• The pg.sql and sqlite.sql tags are removed. Write @default(sql`now()`). The stored default does not change. (#30534)
• A Prisma 7 schema's date and time columns are read as text. This is about Prisma ORM 8 reading your Prisma 7 file, not about Prisma ORM 7 itself. A DateTime column and the @db.Timestamp, @db.Timestamptz, @db.Date, and @db.Time columns now give you strings such as "2026-09-14 10:00:00.123" instead of Temporal values, so your app no longer needs a Temporal polyfill. Change the code that treated these fields as Temporal values, re-emit the contract, then run prisma db sign. (#30553)
• The cache middleware's store decides how long an entry lives. cacheAnnotation no longer takes ttl, every annotated read is cached, skip is now bypass, and maxEntries moves from createCacheMiddleware to createInMemoryCacheStore. (#30530)
• db.enums, the list of each enum's members, now gives you each member as the database stores it. A member stored as a bigint is a bigint, a date member is a Date or a Temporal value. Remove the conversions your code applied, and run prisma contract emit. An enum member must also be written as the database stores it, so "01.5" on a numeric enum is refused with a message that says what to write. (#30628)
• Every contract with a foreign key changes. Run prisma contract emit, then prisma migration plan, which tells you what to do: write an empty migration with prisma migration new if you deploy with migrations, or run prisma db sign if you keep your database in sync with db update. A partial index no longer counts as the index behind a relation, so migration plan creates a plain one next to it unless the relation names the index with index:, and an index with a non-default type or options stops backing a relation in the same way. An unnamed @@index on exactly the columns of a unique constraint or primary key is left out of the contract, so migration plan drops it unless you give it a name. (#30561)
• If Prisma ORM 8 reads your Prisma 7 schema.prisma, the contract now records the constraint names Prisma 7 chose. Run prisma contract emit, then prisma db sign, or prisma migration plan if Prisma ORM 8 already manages your migrations. (#30606)
• MongoDB indexes write their sort direction as sort(field, Desc). @@index([createdAt(sort: Desc)]) is now @@index([sort(createdAt, Desc)]). The database index does not change. (#30636)
• A schema written in TypeScript must list the extensions whose types it uses. A schema that uses a pgvector, PostGIS, or arktype-json column without listing that extension in extensions fails with CONTRACT.CODEC_DESCRIPTOR_MISSING. (#30547)
• db verify --strict reports a table that no contract declares as CONTRACT.SCHEMA_VERIFICATION_FAILED. CONTRACT.MARKER_REQUIRED now only means the database has not been signed. If a script looks for the old code to detect stray tables, change it to the new one. (#30601)

Prisma Compute

A deploy now applies a database's migrations before the service that uses it goes live. Before, the two steps ran at the same time, so new code could serve requests for a few minutes against a database that was not yet at the new schema. A failed migration now stops the new code from shipping. (composer#334)

prisma deploy also reports each step as it starts and finishes, with how long it took: loading the app, assembling each service, connecting to the project, checking environment variables, and applying the plan. The last line names the real total, as in Deployed shop to production in 9m 35s, where it used to show only the time the final apply took. (composer#338)

In pnpm projects, prisma dev and prisma deploy no longer fail with DEPLOY.ALCHEMY_BIN_MISSING. (composer#332)

Deleting a project now also stops the Compute apps it was running, within an hour, and the delete dialog says so. Before, the apps' servers kept running after the project was gone.

Prisma Postgres

A Free workspace that has used up its included queries can now restore database access for 24 hours from the notice in the Console, once per workspace, so you can export your data or finish a task without opening a support request. The button is not offered while a payment, spend-limit, or support hold is active, and paid plans do not need it. The Prisma Postgres FAQ describes each option when you reach the limit.

Prisma Console

The sign-in page at auth.prisma.io, which the Prisma CLI and the Prisma MCP server send you to, now looks like the Console's own login page and follows your light or dark theme. When an OAuth sign-in fails, the error is now shown on the page. Before, it was sent to a notification that never appeared, so a failed sign-in looked like nothing had happened.

Docs and website

• The app templates page is now a gallery. Each Prisma Compute template shows a screenshot of the running app, and you can filter by type and framework and sort by featured, newest, or popular. The filters live in the URL, so a link such as /apps?framework=nextjs opens the list already narrowed.
• The changelog has a product filter, so you can see only the entries that cover Prisma Studio, Prisma Compute, Prisma Postgres, Prisma ORM, or the platform.
• The docs remember which database you pick in code examples across pages and reloads, and a link with ?db=postgresql opens a page on that database's examples.
• Deploy on push now explains how to run a test version of your app next to production: every branch you push gets its own deployment, URL, and databases, a branch you keep gives you a staging environment, and only the default branch deploys production.
• Import an existing database is now a short guide: create the database, pg_dump, pg_restore, then verify.

Fixes

Prisma Compute

• The pull request that Prisma opens to set up deploys on a connected repository works again. Before, a version conflict could stop it from being opened at all. The workflow it writes now sets a pnpm version for repositories without a packageManager field, and no longer has a job that tears down a deleted branch, because Prisma removes a deleted branch's deployments itself. A repository set up earlier keeps that failing job until you delete it from the workflow file.
• Projects that deploy through prisma/cloud-deploy-action set up by hand no longer show a Builds paused card forever. It clears once a CI build has succeeded.
• Leaving an app page open in the Console no longer ends in a Failed to fetch error screen after a dropped request, such as after your laptop sleeps. The page also polls less often while nothing is building.
• When a background refresh of the dashboard or a project overview fails, the Console keeps the page instead of replacing it with an error.

Prisma MCP server

• Connecting Codex to the Prisma MCP server no longer returns 401 right after a successful Prisma sign-in.

Prisma ORM 8

• With Bun, prisma orm init and prisma contract emit no longer fail with CONTRACT.VALIDATION_FAILED on a valid contract. (#30632)
• A jsonb column that holds a JSON string such as "standard" reads back as that string. Before, it failed with RUNTIME.DECODE_FAILED, and "123" read as a number. (#30597)
• A query sent after close() fails with DRIVER.NOT_CONNECTED, and work already started finishes, instead of a misleading error or an unhandled rejection. (#30533)
• A Bytes literal default or a pgvector list default no longer rolls back db init, db update, and db migrate with MIGRATION.SCHEMA_VERIFY_FAILED. (#30603)
• On SQLite, a now() default stores the same text the application writes, so rows that took the default compare and sort correctly. (#30612)
• When a contract change needs no database change, prisma migration plan explains why and names the command to run next. (#30639)
• Dropping a constraint of a table with a long name no longer fails. (#30606)
• Error messages from the database driver no longer include the connection string. (#30451)
• A @default that the schema refuses is reported at the written value, with a message that says what to write instead, such as Expected a number; got a list. (#30539)
• An unknown or misspelled type name reports one diagnostic, PSL_UNRESOLVED_REFERENCE, in both the SQL and MongoDB schema families. (#30563)
• On MongoDB, a nullable list field accepts an explicit null, and the ORM accepts writes of enum values whose stored form differs from the value, such as bigint and date members. (#30568, #30628)

Guides and articles

• App hosting platforms with managed Postgres compared (2026): Prisma Compute, Railway, Render, Fly.io, Supabase, Neon, and Vercel compared for an app next to a managed Postgres database, on previews, idle cost, pooling, backups, and price.

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Need help applying these changes in production? Prisma Enterprise Support can help with schema design, performance, security, and compliance.