Version: 3.x

Database Client

🔋 ZenStack vs Prisma

Unlike Prisma, ZenStack doesn't bundle any database driver. You're responsible for installing a compatible one. Also it doesn't read database connection string from the schema. Instead, you pass in the connection information when creating the client.

The zen generate command compiles the ZModel schema into TypeScript code, which we can in turn use to initialize a type-safe database client. ZenStack uses Kysely to handle the low-level database operations, so the client is initialize with a Kysely dialect - an object that encapsulates database details. For convenience, a few commonly used Kysely dialects (e.g., SqliteDialect and PostgresDialect) are reexported from @zenstackhq/orm/dialects.

The samples below show creating a client using SQLite (via better-sqlite3) and PostgreSQL (via node-postgres). You can also use any other Kysely dialects for these two types of databases.

SQLite
PostgreSQL
MySQL

npm
pnpm
bun
yarn

npm install better-sqlite3
npm install --save-dev @types/better-sqlite3

pnpm add better-sqlite3
pnpm add --save-dev @types/better-sqlite3

bun add better-sqlite3
bun add --dev @types/better-sqlite3

yarn add better-sqlite3
yarn add --dev @types/better-sqlite3

db.ts

import { ZenStackClient } from '@zenstackhq/orm';
import { SqliteDialect } from '@zenstackhq/orm/dialects/sqlite';
import SQLite from 'better-sqlite3';
import { schema } from './zenstack/schema';

export const db = new ZenStackClient(schema, {
    dialect: new SqliteDialect({
        database: new SQLite(':memory:'),
    }),
});

npm
pnpm
bun
yarn

npm install pg
npm install --save-dev @types/pg

pnpm add pg
pnpm add --save-dev @types/pg

bun add pg
bun add --dev @types/pg

yarn add pg
yarn add --dev @types/pg

db.ts

import { ZenStackClient } from '@zenstackhq/orm';
import { PostgresDialect } from '@zenstackhq/orm/dialects/postgres';
import { schema } from './zenstack/schema';
import { Pool } from 'pg';

export const db = new ZenStackClient(schema, {
    dialect: new PostgresDialect({
        pool: new Pool({
            connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
        }),
    }),
});

npm
pnpm
bun
yarn

npm install mysql2

pnpm add mysql2

bun add mysql2

yarn add mysql2

db.ts

import { ZenStackClient } from '@zenstackhq/orm';
import { MysqlDialect } from '@zenstackhq/orm/dialects/mysql';
import { schema } from './zenstack/schema';
import { createPool } from 'mysql2';

export const db = new ZenStackClient(schema, {
    dialect: new MysqlDialect({
        pool: createPool(process.env.DATABASE_URL),
    }),
});

The created db object has the full ORM API inferred from the type of the schema parameter. When necessary, you can also explicitly get the inferred client type like:

import type { ClientContract } from '@zenstackhq/orm';
import type { SchemaType } from '@/zenstack/schema';

export type DbClient = ClientContract<SchemaType>;

GeezerVison

Database Client

Comments