What's new in Prisma? (Q4/21)

Overview

• Releases & new features
  • MongoDB introspection
  • Cascading deletes and updates (referential actions)
  • Expanded index capabilities
  • VS Code extension now uses a Wasm module
  • Running Prisma Client in Cloudflare Workers
  • Solving connection management for serverless environments with the Data Proxy
  • New features for the Prisma Client API
    • Bytes can now be filtered with in and notIn
    • Get the count of a relation in MongoDB
    • Json fields now accept read-only types
• Community
  • Meetups
  • Serverless Data Conference
• Videos, livestreams & more
  • What's new in Prisma
  • Interviews
  • Written content
  • Prisma appearances
• We are hiring
• Stickers
• What's next?

Releases & new features

Our engineers have been hard at work issuing new releases with many improvements and new features every two weeks. Here is an overview of the most exciting features that we've launched in the last three months.

You can stay up-to-date about all upcoming features on our roadmap.

MongoDB introspection

In version 3.2.0, we introduce support for introspecting MongoDB databases. If adding Prisma to an existing project, running prisma db pull against a MongoDB database with existing data will sample the data and create a Prisma data model based on the stored documents.

Since 3.4.0, introspection also works with embedded documents.

Cascading deletes and updates (referential actions)

Cascading deletes and updates (aka referential actions) are features that allow you to control how relations are handled when an entity with relations is changed or deleted. Typically this is done when defining the database schema using SQL.

Referential actions allows you to define this behavior from the Prisma schema by passing in the onDelete and onUpdate arguments to the @relation attribute.

For example:

model LitterBox {
  id   Int     @id @default(autoincrement())
  cats Cat[]
  full Boolean @default(false)
}

model Cat {
  id    String    @id @default(uuid())
  boxId Int
  box   LitterBox @relation(fields: [boxId], references: [id], onDelete: Restrict)
}

Here, you would not be able to delete a LitterBox as long as there still is a Cat linked to it in your database, because of the onDelete: Restrict annotation. If we had written onDelete: Cascade, deleting a LitterBox would also automatically delete the Cats linked to it.

Referential actions was first released in in 2.26.0 with the referentialActions Preview flag. Since then, we've worked to stabilize the feature.

Today, we're delighted to announce that Referential Actions is now General Available, meaning it is enabled by default.

On PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite and Microsoft SQL Server, referential actions will be enforced by the database.

Since 3.7.0, this is also available on MongoDB.

 model User {
   id    String @id @default(dbgenerated()) @map("_id") @db.ObjectId
   posts Post[]
   name  String
 }

 model Post {
   id     String @id @default(dbgenerated()) @map("_id") @db.ObjectId
   author User   @relation(fields: [userId], references: [id], onDelete: Cascade)
   title  String
   userId String @db.ObjectId
 }

Expanded index capabilities

In 3.6.0, we released fulltext index support for MySQL and MongoDB as well as hash index support for PostgreSQL, both in Preview.

Here are examples for using the fulltext index on MySQL:

generator js {
  provider        = "prisma-client-js"
  previewFeatures = ["fullTextIndex"]
}

model Post {
  id      Int    @id
  title   String @db.VarChar(255)
  content String @db.Text

  @@fulltext([title, content])
}

In 3.5.0, we also released more configuration options for indexes and constraints in the Prisma schema.

This applies to:

• indexes
• unique constraints
• primary key constraints

These new configuration options come with full support for the prisma db pull, prisma db push and prisma migrate dev commands, so index configuration can now be managed, evolved and deployed using Prisma's schema management tooling.

Two new arguments can now be specified per field:

• length (the maximum length of items in the index)
• sort (how an index is sorted)

In order to use these new capabilities, add the extendedIndexes feature flag in the generator block:

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
  previewFeatures = ["extendedIndexes"]
}

The change affects the @id, @@id, @unique, @@unique and @@index fields in certain databases:

• The length argument is available on MySQL on the @id, @@id, @unique, @@unique and @@index fields. It allows Prisma to now support indexes and constraints on String with a TEXT native type and Bytes types.
• The sort argument is available for all databases on the @unique, @@unique and @@index fields. Additionally, SQL Server also allows it on @id and @@id.

The following example demonstrates the use of the sort and length arguments:

model Post {
    title       String @db.VarChar(300)
    abstract    String @db.VarChar(3000)
    slug        String @db.VarChar(3000) @unique(sort: Desc, length: 42)
    author      String
    created_at  DateTime

    @@id([title(length: 100, sort: Desc), abstract(length: 10)])
    @@index([author, created_at(sort: Desc)])
}

Learn more in the documentation on index configuration.

VS Code extension now uses a Wasm module

Before version 3.6.0, the language server powering the Prisma VS Code extension relied on logic from the Prisma engines in the form of a native binary. Downloading and running the native binary required a large amount of custom logic and led to problems due to network failures, operating system permissions and malicious code detection issues.

Starting with this release, the language server and the VS Code extension use logic compiled to WebAssembly and distributed through npm. There is no runtime binary download and no external process involved anymore. We expect this new distribution model to be more robust and hence provide a better experience for our users.

If you have any feedback, please leave an issue in the prisma/language-tools repository.

Running Prisma Client in Cloudflare Workers

Using this new feature in Prisma Client and leveraging the Prisma Data Proxy, developers can now deploy Prisma applications on Cloudflare Workers. Here's what it looks like to use Prisma Client inside of this environment:

import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client'
const prisma = new PrismaClient()

addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
  event.respondWith(handleRequest(event.request))
})

async function handleRequest(request: Request): Promise<Response> {
  await prisma.log.create({
    data: {
      level: 'Info',
      message: `${request.method} ${request.url}`,
    },
  })
  return new Response(`request method: ${request.method}!`)
}

Follow this deployment guide to learn how to use Prisma Client with your own Cloudflare Workers. If you run into any problems, you can reach us in this issue!

Solving connection management for serverless environments with the Data Proxy

The Prisma Data Proxy is an intermediary between your app and your database. It manages connection pooling, so you can reliably use traditional databases in Serverless environments.

Users can configure a Data Proxy for free on the Prisma Data Platform and connect their Prisma applications to the proxy by enabling the feature flag for it in their code.

For detailed documentation and instructions please refer to pris.ly/data-proxy.

New features for the Prisma Client API

Bytes can now be filtered with in and notIn

You can now use in and notIn operations on the Bytes type:

const audioTracks = raws.map(raw => {
  return Buffer.from(raw)
})

const result = await prisma.audio.find({
  where: {
    track:
      in: audioTracks
    }
  }
})

Get the count of a relation in MongoDB

This release, we're giving MongoDB developers the ability to query the count of a relation. In the example below, we're getting the number of posts each user wrote:

const userWithPostsCount = await prisma.user.findMany({
  include: {
    _count: {
      select: { posts: true },
    },
  },
})

// => [
//      {
//        email: "alice@prisma.io",
//        _count: { posts: 3 }
//      }
//    ]

Json fields now accept read-only types

This is a small quality-of-life improvement. You can now pass immutable values into Json fields. In the following example, audit is a Json field that accepts a read-only array:

const trail = [
  { event: "signup" },
  { event: "subscribe" },
  { event: "invite friend" }
] as const

await prisma.user.create({
  data: {
    audit: trail
  }
})

Community

We wouldn't be where we are today without our amazing community of developers. Our Slack has almost 50k members and is a great place to ask questions, share feedback and initiate discussions all around Prisma.

Meetups

GitHub Africa/GraphQL Berlin Meetup

Type-safe GraphQL APIs with Prisma and Nexus - Alex Ruheni

Unlocking Static Type Superpowers with GraphQL Introspection - Eli Perkins

Meetup YouTube

GraphQL Berlin #24

Why GraphQL Is Perfect For Microservices - Roy Derks

Building GraphQL APIs for a vector search engine - Bob van Luijt

GraphQL as an API Gateway - Dominik Kress

Meetup YouTube

TypeScript Berlin #28

Type Level Programming (with Dependent Types) - Magnus Kulke

Dealing with untyped runtime libraries in TypeScript - Robert Wolff

Distributive conditional types - Iván Ovejero

Meetup YouTube

Prisma Serverless Data Conference

In November, we hosted our first Serverless Data Conference. If you haven't yet, check out the talks on YouTube!

For this conference, we invited speakers from leading serverless companies such as Cloudflare, Vercel and Netlify to talk about how greatly Prisma fits into the serverless ecosystem. We also had several speakers from modern database companies, such as MongoDB, CockroachDB and PlanetScale.

Here is an overview of all the talks:

Serverless Data Conference 2021

Opening Keynote - Søren Bramer Schmidt & Team

Building Applications At The Edge For Fun And Profit - Greg McKeon (Cloudflare)

Serverless Apps At Scale With Prisma Data Proxy And MongoDB Atlas Serverless - Kevin Jernigan (MongoDB)

Scaling Databases For Serverless World: A Chat With Sugu Sougoumarane - Taylor Barnett & Sugu Sougoumarane (Planetscale)

Building Serverless Apps With Next.Js And Prisma - Hassan El Mghari (Vercel)

Deploy A Serverless Prisma + PlanetScale React TypeScript App To Netlify - Jason Lengstorf (Netlify)

Server less, Code more - Aydrian Howard (CockroachDB)

YouTube

Videos, livestreams & more

What's new in Prisma

Every other Thursday, Daniel Norman, Nikolas Burk and Alex Ruheni discuss the latest Prisma release and other news from the Prisma ecosystem and community. If you want to travel back in time and learn about a past release, you can find all the shows from this quarter here:

Some highlights of this quarter include the interviews with Prisma Ambassador Albin Groen about the Prisma Schema Builder, Serghei Ghidora about how Elsevier uses Prisma or Tana Berry, Prisma's new documentation lead.

• 3.6.0
• 3.5.0
• 3.4.0
• 3.3.0
• 3.2.0

Interviews

We published a lot of videos during this quarter on our YouTube channel, make sure you check them out and subscribe to not miss out on future videos.

This quarter, we also recorded a number of interviews with Prisma employees:

• Carmen Berndt (Software Engineer)
• Emily Morgan (Software Engineer)
• Tasin Ishman (Developer Success)
• Mahmoud Abdelwahab (Developer Advocate)

Also check out this interview with our community member Shanon Jackson about end-to-end type safety with Next.js and Prisma:

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to not miss any videos in the future:

Written content

During this quarter, we published several technical articles on the Data Guide that you might find useful:

• Working with dates in PostgreSQL
• What is serverless?
• Serverless Glossary
• Introduction to common serverless challenges
• Introduction to Database replication and its benefits
• Top 13 serverless computing and database providers

We also published three success stories of companies adopting Prisma:

• How Tryg has leveraged Prisma to democratize data
• How Panther champions talent over geography with Prisma
• How Elsevier Piloted an Innovative Publication Process Quickly and Flexibly with Prisma

We also published several useful articles on our blog:

• Type-safe JavaScript with JsDoc
• Improving the Prisma Visual Studio Code Extension with WebAssembly
• Database Access in Serverless Environments with the Prisma Data Proxy

Prisma appearances

This quarter, several Prisma folks have appeared on external channels and livestreams. Here's an overview of all of them:

Daniel Norman @ Next.js Conf

Mahmoud Abdelwahab @ Next.js Conf

Daniel Norman @ MongoDB Podcast

We are hiring

Also, we're hiring for various roles! If you're interested in joining us and becoming a Prismate, check out our jobs page.

Stickers

We love seeing laptops that are decorated with Prisma stickers, so we're shipping them for free to our community members! In this quarter, we've sent out over 3500(!) sticker packs to developers that are excited about Prisma!

What's next?

The best places to stay up-to-date about what we're currently working on are GitHub issues and our public roadmap.

You can also engage in conversations in our Slack channel, start a discussion on GitHub or join one of the many Prisma meetups around the world.

If you never want to miss any news from the Prisma community, follow us on Twitter.