Prisma is a next-generation open-source ORM For Node.js and TypeScript that helps developers build faster and make fewer errors.

It supports the following databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, SQLite, and more recently, MongoDB (Preview).

Prisma provides a complete toolkit:

- Prisma Client: Auto-generated and type-safe database client
- Prisma Migrate: Declarative data modeling and customizable migrations
- Prisma Studio: Modern UI to view and edit data


prisma

Learn Prisma

Prisma is an open-source ORM. It consists of the following parts: 

- Prisma Client: Auto-generated and type-safe query builder
- Prisma Migrate: Migration system
- Prisma Studio: GUI to view and edit data in your database

Prisma Client can be used in any Node.js or TypeScript backend application (including serverless applications and microservices). This can be a REST API, a GraphQL API, a gRPC API, or anything else that needs a database.

In this course, you will learn how to initialize Prisma in a TypeScript Node project, use Prisma Client to create and find records, use Express to create data dynamically, and more! 



Build a Backend with Prisma in a TypeScript Node Project

(This collection is still WIP)

Databases are essential for any full-stack applications, but working with them is traditionally very difficult. Prisma is here to change that. It's a powerful database toolkit that helps us think in data itself - not SQL, not classes, just the data we care about in our apps.

In this series, we will learn how to leverage the power of Prisma to automatically generate a type-safe, autocomplete-ready, and efficient query builder, all based on a simple and easy-to-read schema. We will integrate all this good stuff into a Next.js project to complete a simple social network app.

In the end, you will be able to understand how Prisma works, and confidently start using Prisma in your own project.

Build a full-stack app with Prisma

Tools like Firebase give you a powerful API that connects directly with your client apps. Though powerful, Firebase can be difficult when writing complex data to the database or querying for a complex data structure.

GraphQL, on the other hand, has a powerful API too and an easy Graph spec to query and write to your data source. Unlike Firebase, it doesn't come with a data persistence layer.

Prisma is an open source database layer for GraphQL projects. It serves as both an ORM and also hides the complexity of writing complex resolvers.

This lesson shows how, without a server, you can Firebase-like GraphQL database that your client can talk directly with.


Build a Graphql Serverless Database for Your Client Apps Using Prisma

Prisma makes database access easy with an auto-generated and type-safe query builder.

In this lesson, we will learn how to install all the necessary dependencies and set up Prisma for an existing npm project, with an empty PostgreSQL database running in the background. We will create our first Prisma data model in the schema, and use *Prisma Migrate* to map our data model into the database. 

Finally, we'll generate the *Prisma Client* into our `node_modules` directory, so later we can simply import and use the client tailored to our data models as a normal npm package in the project.

At the time of recording this lesson, *Prisma Migrate* is in an experimental state, so the extra flag `--experimental` is needed to perform the `save` and `up` commands.

Install and Set up Prisma for a New Project

In this lesson, we will write a code snippet which creates a new entry in the database. We will import and use the Prisma Client that we previously generated by running the command `npx prisma generate` to perform this query. 

Thanks to type-safety, we can now directly catch mismatched data field types while we are coding, drastically reducing the chance of having bugs in the code.

Tip - When in doubt, you can always use the key combination `ctrl-space` to invoke the autocomplete feature of VS Code. This is also a huge benefit made possible by Prisma's type-safety, and is super handy for exploring the Prisma Client API.

Create an entry in the database with Prisma Client

Apart from creating entries, it's also very intuitive to read, update, or delete data from the database with Prisma Client.

In this lesson, we will explore the [Prisma Client API](https://www.prisma.io/docs/reference/tools-and-interfaces/prisma-client/crud) for `findMany`, `findOne`, `updateMany`, `deleteMany` and so on.

Notice that since all these methods are tailored to the schema that we defined earlier, VS Code is aware of what is valid and is able to prompt us with helpful autocomplete options, making it much easier to explore the Prisma Client API.

Perform basic database queries (CRUD) with Prisma Client

In this lesson, we will learn how to model data relationships with Prisma Schema. 

We will be using a social network as our example, create data models such as users, posts, likes, comments, and model the relations between them. After this lesson, you should be able to model common relations like *one-to-one* (1:1), *one-to-many* (1:n), *many-to-many* (n:m) with Prisma.

At the time of recording this lesson, *Prisma Migrate* is in an experimental state, so the extra flag `--experimental` is needed to perform the `save` and `up` commands.


Work with Models and Relations with Prisma Schema

Prisma Client allows us to limit the amount of data that is returned from queries. It also allows us to be specific about which data should be included in the returned dataset. In this lesson, we use the select and include operators to be specific about the shape of our returned data.

Limit the Amount of Returned Data with Prisma Client

Prisma Client has a specific API for relating data from one table to another when creating new records. In this lesson, we use the connect operator to establish a link between two tables as new records are created.

Use Prisma Client to Connect Related Tables when Creating New Data

When two tables are related to one another, we can use Prisma Client to query for data through those relations. In this lesson, we see how to use Prisma Client to tie together data from two separate tables and pull it out in a nested fashion.

Use Prisma Client to Query for Related Data

Prisma Schema Language is used to model our database tables and establish relations between them. Prisma offers autocompletion to register the relations. In this lesson, we create a new model for a second database table and see how to relate our two tables together.

Create a Relation Between Two Tables in the Prisma Schema

Prisma is API-agnostic meaning that it doesn't matter how we build our APIs. They can be REST APIs, GraphQL APIs, or anything else. In this lesson, we see how to use express to accept JSON data to be forwarded off to Prisma to create new records in the database.

Use Express to Create Data Dynamically

Prisma Client offers methods to create new database records. These methods accept a data object and return the result to be consumed by clients. In this lesson, we use Prisma Client's create method to create new records in the database.

Create a Database Record with Prisma Client

Prisma Client has a full API for selecting subsets of data in our tables. We can use the WHERE clause to match specific conditions for which we would like to return data. In this lesson, we look at how to use the WHERE and its operators to return a subset of data.

Use Prima Client to Select a Subset of Data

Prisma Client is a fully type-safe database access client that is automatically generated based on our Prisma Schema files. In this lesson, we use Prisma Client to access records in our database programmatically. We show how to return the data from an endpoint built with express.

Use Prisma Client to Find Many Records in a Table

Prisma Studio is a GUI for viewing and interacting with our databases. In this lesson, we view our database with Prisma Studio and use it to create our first record.

Use Prisma Studio to Create a Record

Prisma offers a powerful database modeling language called the Prisma Schema Language. It allows us to describe the shape of our tables, the columns they should have (and their types), and relations between tables. In this lesson, we get started with our first table in our Prisma Schema file.

Create a Model for a Table and Run Migrations

The Prisma CLI comes with commands to initialize Prisma in a project, run migrations, generate Prisma Client and more. In this lesson, we install the relevant dependencies and initialize Prisma in a TypeScript Node project.

Initialize Prisma in a TypeScript Node Project

Prisma offers an extension for VS Code that enables syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and more for Prisma Schema files. In this lesson, we learn how to install the Prisma VS Code extension.

Install the Prisma VS Code Extension


Next up is creating a Planetscale database for our application. Planetscale works a lot like GitHub in that it uses branches for development and production.

We will create a new database and then create a dev branch to separate the data we create in dev from what is in production.

When the database is created, we'll set the `DATABASE_URL` in our `.env` file for the main and dev branches.

The last thing we will need to do is push the prisma schema to planetscale so that it can create the necessary tables for our application to function. 

Explore the prisma schema and tables created to get more familiar with what the application is doing.

Prisma

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