Deploying Production Migrations

MIGRATIONS-production

Overview

Production database migrations require careful orchestration to prevent data loss and downtime. This covers safe migration deployment using prisma migrate deploy in CI/CD pipelines, failure handling, and rollback strategies.

Production Migration Commands

Safe Command

prisma migrate deploy: Applies pending migrations only; records history in _prisma_migrations; neither creates migrations nor resets database.

npx prisma migrate deploy

Prohibited Commands

prisma migrate dev: Creates migrations, can reset database (development-only)
prisma migrate reset: Drops/recreates database, deletes all data
prisma db push: Bypasses migration history, no rollback capability, risks data loss

CI/CD Integration

# GitHub Actions
name: Deploy to Production
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx prisma generate
      - run: npx prisma migrate deploy
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
      - run: npm run deploy

# GitLab CI
deploy-production:
  stage: deploy
  image: node:20
  only: [main]
  environment:
    name: production
  before_script:
    - npm ci && npx prisma generate
  script:
    - npx prisma migrate deploy
    - npm run deploy
  variables:
    DATABASE_URL: $DATABASE_URL_PRODUCTION

# Docker
FROM node:20-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY prisma ./prisma
RUN npx prisma generate
COPY . .
CMD ["sh", "-c", "npx prisma migrate deploy && npm start"]

Handling Failed Migrations

**Check status

**: npx prisma migrate status (identifies pending, applied, failed migrations, and schema drift)

Resolution options:

• Temporary failure: npx prisma migrate resolve --applied <name> && npx prisma migrate deploy
• Partially reverted: npx prisma migrate resolve --rolled-back <name>
• Buggy migration: Create new migration to fix: npx prisma migrate dev --name fix_previous_migration, then deploy

Manual rollback: Create down migration (SQL to revert changes), apply via npx prisma migrate dev --name rollback_* --create-only

Production Deployment Checklist

Pre-Deployment: All migrations tested in staging; backup created; rollback plan documented; downtime window scheduled; team notified

Deployment: Maintenance mode enabled (if needed); run npx prisma migrate deploy; verify status; run smoke tests; monitor logs

Post-Deployment: Verify all migrations applied; check functionality; monitor database performance; disable maintenance mode; document issues

Database Connection Best Practices

Connection pooling: DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/db?connection_limit=10&pool_timeout=20"

Security: Never commit DATABASE_URL; use environment variables, CI/CD secrets, or secret management tools (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)

Read replicas: Separate migration connection from app connections; migrations always target primary database:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://primary:5432/db"
DATABASE_URL_REPLICA="postgresql://replica:5432/db"

Zero-Downtime Migrations

Expand-Contract Pattern:

1. Expand (add new column, keep old): ALTER TABLE "User" ADD COLUMN "email_new" TEXT; Deploy app writing to both.
2. Migrate data: `UPDATE "User" SET "email_new" = "email"

WHERE "email_new" IS NULL;3. **Contract** (remove old):ALTER TABLE "User" DROP COLUMN "email"; ALTER TABLE "User" RENAME COLUMN "email_new" TO "email";`

Backwards-compatible: Make columns optional first, enforce constraints in later migration.

Monitoring and Alerts

Duration tracking: time npx prisma migrate deploy; set alerts for migrations exceeding expected duration

Failure alerts:

- run: npx prisma migrate deploy
- if: failure()
  run: curl -X POST $SLACK_WEBHOOK -d '{"text":"Production migration failed!"}'

Schema drift detection: npx prisma migrate status fails if schema differs from migrations

Common Production Issues

Configuration

Shadow Database (Prisma 6): Not needed for migrate deploy, only migrate dev

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://..."
SHADOW_DATABASE_URL="postgresql://...shadow"

Multi-Environment Strategy:

• Development: npx prisma migrate dev
• Staging: npx prisma migrate deploy (test production process)
• Production: npx prisma migrate deploy (apply only, never create)

References

Prisma Migrate Deploy Documentation | Production Best Practices | Troubleshooting Migrations