Drizzle ORM

Drizzle ORM is a lightweight, TypeScript-first ORM with a SQL-like query builder, schema-as-code migrations, and zero dependencies.

Documentation

• Docs: https://orm.drizzle.team/llms.txt

Key Capabilities

Built-in schema validation adapters — Drizzle includes first-party integrations with Zod, Valibot, TypeBox, ArkType, and Effect Schema via drizzle-zod, drizzle-valibot, etc. There is no need to manually write validation schemas that mirror your table definitions; these packages infer insert/select types directly from your Drizzle schema.

Built-in seeding — drizzle-seed provides deterministic, reproducible fake data generation with seedable PRNG, weighted distributions, and cross-dialect support. It replaces ad-hoc seed scripts or external packages like @faker-js/faker for database seeding workflows.

Best Practices

Call .$dynamic() to compose queries across functions. By default, Drizzle query builders restrict each clause method (where, limit, orderBy) to a single call — this mirrors SQL but breaks composable helper functions. You must call .$dynamic() to unlock multi-call mode. Use the dialect-specific generic types (PgSelect, MySqlSelect, SQLiteSelect) as parameter types for functions that accept a query builder to extend.

Relational queries (db.query.*) generate exactly one SQL statement — nested offset is not supported. Unlike Prisma's batched-query approach, Drizzle uses a single lateral-join query per db.query call. A consequence is that offset only works at the top level of a relational query; nested relation pagination must use where with cursor-based logic instead.

Use drizzle-kit push only for development, never production. drizzle-kit push applies schema changes directly without generating migration files. Teams that use push in production lose the auditable migration history needed for drizzle-kit migrate in CI/CD. Use drizzle-kit generate + drizzle-kit migrate for production deployments.

Never instantiate drizzle() per request in serverless environments. Each call can open a new connection pool. Export a module-level singleton and re-use it across invocations, following the same pattern as Prisma's PrismaClient singleton pattern.

drizzle-kit pull and push do not preserve hand-written SQL in migration files. If you manually edit a generated migration file (e.g., to add a partial index or a custom trigger), subsequent pull operations will overwrite those edits. Track custom migrations in separate numbered files and apply them alongside generated ones.

db.query.* relational queries require explicit relations() definitions. Unlike Prisma, Drizzle does not infer relations from foreign keys automatically. If you call db.query.users.findMany({ with: { posts: true } }) without a relations() export in the schema file, the query throws at runtime with a non-obvious error. Define relations explicitly for every table you want to query relationally.