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Prisma CLI

The Prisma command line interface (CLI) is the primary way to interact with your Prisma project from the command line. It can initialize new project assets, generate Prisma Client, and analyze existing database structures through introspection to automatically create your application models.

Command reference

See Prisma CLI command reference for a complete list of commands.

Installation

The Prisma CLI is typically installed locally as a development dependency, that's why the --save-dev (npm) and --dev (Yarn) options are used in the commands below.

We recommend that you install the Prisma CLI locally in your project's package.json to avoid version conflicts that can happen with a global installation.

npm

Install with :

npm install prisma --save-dev

Yarn

Install with :

yarn add prisma --dev

pnpm

Install with :

pnpm install prisma --save-dev

Bun

Install with :

bun add prisma
  • npm

Install with npm:

npm install -g prisma
  • Yarn

Install with Yarn:

yarn global add prisma
  • pnpm

Install with pnpm:

pnpm install prisma --global
  • Bun

Install with :

bun add --global prisma

Usage

If you installed Prisma as a development dependency, you need to prefix the prisma command with your package runner.

npm

npx prisma

Yarn

yarn prisma

pnpm

pnpm dlx prisma

Bun

bunx prisma

Synopsis

The prisma command can be called from command line once installed. When called without arguments, it will display its command usage and help document:

$prisma
Hide CLI results
Prisma is a modern DB toolkit to query, migrate and model your database (https://www.prisma.io)
Usage
$ prisma [command]
Commands
init Setup Prisma for your app
generate Generate artifacts (e.g. Prisma Client)
db Manage your database schema and lifecycle
migrate Migrate your database
studio Browse your data with Prisma Studio
validate Validate your Prisma schema
format Format your Prisma schema
Flags
--preview-feature Run Preview Prisma commands
Examples
Setup a new Prisma project
$ prisma init
Generate artifacts (e.g. Prisma Client)
$ prisma generate
Browse your data
$ prisma studio
Create migrations from your Prisma schema, apply them to the database, generate artifacts (e.g. Prisma Client)
$ prisma migrate dev
Pull the schema from an existing database, updating the Prisma schema
$ prisma db pull
Push the Prisma schema state to the database
$ prisma db push

You can get additional help on any of the prisma commands by adding the --help flag after the command.

Exit codes

All prisma CLI commands return the following codes when they exit:

  • exit code 0 when a command runs successfully
  • exit code 1 when a command errors
  • exit code 130 when the CLI receives a signal interrupt (SIGINT) message or if the user cancels a prompt. This exit code is available in Prisma ORM versions 4.3.0 and later.

Telemetry

The term telemetry refers to the collection of certain usage data to help improve the quality of a piece of software. Prisma uses telemetry in two contexts:

  • when it collects CLI usage data
  • when it submits CLI error reports

This page describes the overall telemetry approach for Prisma, what kind of data is collected and how to opt-out of data collection.

Why does Prisma collect metrics?

Telemetry helps us better understand how many users are using our products and how often they are using our products. Unlike many telemetry services, our telemetry implementation is intentionally limited in scope and is actually useful for the developer:

  • Limited in scope: We use telemetry to answer one question: how many monthly active developers are using Prisma CLI?
  • Provides value: Our telemetry service also checks for version updates and offers security notices.

When is data collected?

Data is collected in two scenarios that are described below.

Usage data

Invocations of the prisma CLI and general usage of Studio results in data being sent to the telemetry server at Note that:

  • The data does not include your schema or the data in your database
  • Prisma only sends information after you execute a CLI command

Here is an overview of the data that's being submitted:

FieldAttributesDescription
productstringName of the product (e.g. prisma)
versionstringCurrently installed version of the product (e.g. 1.0.0-rc0)
archstringClient's operating system architecture (e.g. amd64).
osstringClient's operating system (e.g. darwin).
node_versionstringClient's node version (e.g. v12.12.0).
signaturestringRandom, non-identifiable signature UUID (e.g. 91b014df3-9dda-4a27-a8a7-15474fd899f8)
user_agentstringUser agent of the checkpoint client (e.g. prisma/js-checkpoint)
timestampstringWhen the request was made in RFC3339 format (e.g. 2019-12-12T17:45:56Z)

You can opt-out of this behavior by setting the CHECKPOINT_DISABLE environment variable to 1, e.g.:

$export CHECKPOINT_DISABLE=1

Error reporting

Prisma potentially collects error data when there is a crash in the CLI.

Before an error report is submitted, there will always be a prompt asking you to confirm or deny the submission of the error report! Error reports are never submitted without your explicit consent!

How to opt-out of data collection?

Usage data

You can opt-out of usage data collection by setting the CHECKPOINT_DISABLE environment variable to 1, e.g.:

$export CHECKPOINT_DISABLE=1

Error reporting

You can opt-out of data collection by responding to the interactive prompt with no.