Prisma Engines

This repository contains a collection of engines that power the core stack for Prisma, most prominently Prisma Client and Prisma Migrate.

If you're looking for how to install Prisma or any of the engines, the Getting Started guide might be useful.

This document describes some of the internals of the engines, and how to build and test them.

What's in this repository

This repository contains the following core components:

• Query compiler – compiles Prisma Client queries into executable plans (SQL + orchestration) that the client runs through driver adapters in JavaScript land.
• Driver adapters & executor harness – TypeScript utilities that load query plans, talk to database drivers, and expose the legacy protocol for existing tooling.
• Schema engine – creates and runs migrations, and performs introspection.
• Prisma Format – historically a formatter for Prisma schemas, now also serves LSP features.

Additionally, the psl (Prisma Schema Language) is the library that defines how the language looks, how it's parsed, etc.

You'll also find:

• libs, for various (small) libraries such as macros, user facing errors, various connector/database-specific libraries, etc.
• a docker-compose.yml file that's helpful for running tests and bringing up containers for various databases
• a shell.nix file for bringing up all dependencies and making it easy to build the code in this repository (the use of this file and nix is entirely optional, but can be a good and easy way to get started)
• an .envrc file to make it easier to set everything up, including the nix shell

Documentation

The API docs (cargo doc) are published on our fabulous repo page.

Building Prisma Engines

Prerequisites:

• Installed the latest stable version of the Rust toolchain. You can get the toolchain at rustup or the package manager of your choice.
• Linux only: OpenSSL is required to be installed.
• Installed direnv, then direnv allow on the repository root.
  • Make sure direnv is hooked into your shell
  • Alternatively: Load the defined environment in ./.envrc manually in your shell.

Note for nix users: it should be enough to direnv allow. How to build:

To build all engines, simply execute cargo build on the repository root. This builds non-production debug binaries. If you want to build the optimized binaries in release mode, the command is cargo build --release.

Depending on how you invoked cargo in the previous step, you can find the compiled binaries inside the repository root in the target/debug (without --release) or target/release directories (with --release):

The query compiler is a library crate. To produce the Wasm bundles that power the JS runtime, use make build-qc-wasm. Driver adapters are compiled via make build-driver-adapters-kit-qc.

Prisma Schema Language

The Prisma Schema Language is a library which defines the data structures and parsing rules for prisma files, including the available database connectors. For more technical details, please check the library README.

The PSL is used throughout the schema engine, as well as prisma format. The DataModel (DML), which is an annotated version of the PSL, is also used as input for the query compiler and driver adapters.

Query Compiler & Driver Adapters

Prisma Client now executes queries through the query compiler and TypeScript driver adapters:

• The Rust query compiler consumes the DML and produces query plans describing the SQL and orchestration steps required to satisfy a Prisma query.
• Driver adapters (see libs/driver-adapters) wrap database drivers in JavaScript. They are used by the @prisma/client-engine-runtime package in the main repo which implements the query plan interpreter and transaction management. Driver adapters are also used directly from Rust by the early stage work-in-progress Wasm port of the schema engine.
• The connector test kit (query-engine/connector-test-kit-rs) exercises this end-to-end by spawning the executor process and driving requests through the adapters.

You will typically touch three layers when working on the query stack:

• Rust planner logic (query-compiler, query-core, query-structure, etc.).
• The driver adapter executor (libs/driver-adapters/executor).
• Integration tests (cargo test -p query-engine-tests, usually via make dev-*-qc).

There is no standalone query engine binary anymore. The compatibility harness lives in JavaScript and is bundled from this repository using make build-driver-adapters-kit-qc.

Schema Engine

The Schema Engine does a couple of things:

• creates new migrations by comparing the prisma file with the current state of the database, in order to bring the database in sync with the prisma file
• run these migrations and keeps track of which migrations have been executed
• (re-)generate a prisma schema file starting from a live database

The engine uses:

• the prisma files, as the source of truth
• the database it connects to, for diffing and running migrations, as well as keeping track of migrations in the _prisma_migrations table
• the prisma/migrations directory which acts as a database of existing migrations

Prisma format

Prisma format can format prisma schema files. It also comes as a Wasm module via a node package. You can read more here.

Debugging

When trying to debug code, here's a few things that might be useful:

• use the language server; being able to go to definition and reason about code can make things a lot easier,
• add dbg!() statements to validate code paths, inspect variables, etc.,
• you can control the amount of logs you see, and where they come from using the RUST_LOG environment variable; see the documentation

Testing

There are two test suites for the engines: Unit tests and integration tests.

• Unit tests: They test internal functionality of individual crates and components.

  You can find them across the whole codebase, usually in ./tests folders at the root of modules. These tests can be executed via cargo test. Note that some of them will require the TEST_DATABASE_URL enviornment variable set up.

• Integration tests: They run GraphQL/JSON requests through the driver adapter executor (wrapping the query compiler) and assert that the responses match expectations.

  You can find them at ./query-engine/connector-test-kit-rs.

[!NOTE] Help needed: document how to run

• quaint tests
• schema engine tests

This can be a good first contribution.

Run unit tests

To run unit tests for the whole workspace (except crates that require external services such as quaint, sql-migration-tests, or the connector test kit), use:

make test-unit

This target wires up the appropriate --exclude list. If you prefer plain cargo, replicate the exclusions used in the Makefile when invoking cargo test --workspace --all-features.

Set up & run connector test kit (QC)

Prerequisites:

• Rust toolchain
• Docker (for SQL connectors)
• Node.js ≥ 20 and pnpm (driver adapters)
• direnv allow in the repository root, or load .envrc manually

Setup:

Use the dev-*-qc helpers to spin up a database (when needed), build the query-compiler Wasm, build the driver adapters, and write the .test_config consumed by the connector test kit:

• make dev-pg-qc
• make dev-pg-cockroachdb-qc
• make dev-mssql-qc
• make dev-planetscale-qc
• make dev-mariadb-qc
• make dev-libsql-qc
• make dev-better-sqlite3-qc
• make dev-d1-qc
• make dev-neon-qc

The non-*-qc helpers (e.g. make dev-postgres13) are still available when you only need a database, but they do not build driver adapters for you.

On Windows without WSL: replicate what the Make targets do manually (start the container, run make build-qc-wasm, run make build-driver-adapters-kit-qc, and create .test_config).

Run:

cargo test -p query-engine-tests -- --nocapture

Set DRIVER_ADAPTER=<adapter> when invoking make test-qe to run against a specific adapter, e.g.:

DRIVER_ADAPTER=pg make test-qe

Refer to the connector test kit guide for the full list of adapters, environment variables, and troubleshooting notes.

Testing driver adapters

Please refer to the Testing driver adapters section in the connector-test-kit-rs README.

ℹ️ Important note on developing features that require changes to both the query compiler and driver adapter code

make test-qe (optionally with DRIVER_ADAPTER=...) ensures you have prisma/orm checked out next to this repository. The driver adapter sources are symlinked from there so that engines and client stay in lockstep.

When working on a feature or bugfix spanning adapters and query-compiler code, you will need sibling PRs in prisma/orm and prisma/prisma-engines. Locally, each time you run DRIVER_ADAPTER=$adapter make test-qe, tests use the adapters built from your local ../prisma clone.

In CI we need to denote which branch of prisma/orm should be consumed. By default CI clones the v7 branch, which will not include your local adapter changes. To test in integration, add the following tag to your PR description on a separate line:

/prisma-branch your/branch

Replace your/branch with the name of your branch in the prisma/orm repository.

GitHub actions will then pick up the branch name and use it to clone that branch's code of prisma/orm, and build the driver adapters code from there.

When it's time to merge the sibling PRs, you'll need to merge the prisma/orm PR first, so when merging the engines PR you have the code of the adapters ready in prisma/orm v7 branch.

Testing engines in prisma/orm

You can trigger releases from this repository to npm that can be used for testing the engines in prisma/orm either automatically or manually:

Automated integration releases from this repository to npm

Any branch name starting with integration/ will, first, run the full test suite in GH Actions and, second, run the release workflow (build and upload engines to S3 & R2). To trigger the release on any other branch, you have two options:

• Either run build-engines workflow on a specified branch manually.
• Or add [integration] string anywhere in your commit messages/

The journey through the pipeline is the same as a commit on the main branch.

• It will trigger prisma/engines-wrapper and publish a new @prisma/engines-version npm package but on the integration tag.
• Which triggers prisma/orm to create a chore(Automated Integration PR): [...] PR with a branch name also starting with integration/
• Since in prisma/orm we also trigger the publish pipeline when a branch name starts with integration/, this will publish all prisma/orm monorepo packages to npm on the integration tag.
• Our ecosystem-tests tests will automatically pick up this new version and run tests, results will show in GitHub Actions

This end to end will take minimum ~1h20 to complete, but is completely automated 🤖

Notes:

• tests and publishing workflows are run in parallel in both prisma/prisma-engines and prisma/orm repositories. So, it is possible that the engines would be published and only then test suite will discover a defect. It is advised that to keep an eye on both test and publishing workflows.

Manual integration releases from this repository to npm

Additionally to the automated integration release for integration/ branches, you can also trigger a publish by pushing a commit with the content [integration].

Parallel rust-analyzer builds

When rust-analzyer runs cargo check it will lock the build directory and stop any cargo commands from running until it has completed. This makes the build process feel a lot longer. It is possible to avoid this by setting a different build path for rust-analyzer. To avoid this. Open VSCode settings and search for Check on Save: Extra Args. Look for the Rust-analyzer › Check On Save: Extra Args settings and add a new directory for rust-analyzer. Something like:

--target-dir:/tmp/rust-analyzer-check

Community PRs: create a local branch for a branch coming from a fork

To trigger an Automated integration releases from this repository to npm or Manual integration releases from this repository to npm branches of forks need to be pulled into this repository so the Github Actions job is triggered. You can use these GitHub and git CLI commands to achieve that easily:

gh pr checkout 4375
git checkout -b integration/sql-nested-transactions
git push --set-upstream origin integration/sql-nested-transactions

If there is a need to re-create this branch because it has been updated, deleting it and re-creating will make sure the content is identical and avoid any conflicts.

git branch --delete integration/sql-nested-transactions
gh pr checkout 4375
git checkout -b integration/sql-nested-transactions
git push --set-upstream origin integration/sql-nested-transactions --force

Security

If you have a security issue to report, please contact us at security@prisma.io