Introduction to Prisma Client

Prisma Client is an auto-generated and type-safe query builder that's tailored to your data. The easiest way to get started with Prisma Client is by following the Quickstart.

⭐ Quickstart (5 min)

The setup instructions below provide a high-level overview of the steps needed to set up Prisma Client. If you want to get started using Prisma Client with your own database, follow one of these guides:

🚀 Set up a new project from scratch

➕ Add Prisma to an existing project

Set up

1. Prerequisites

In order to set up Prisma Client, you need a Prisma schema file with your database connection, the Prisma Client generator, and at least one model:

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
}

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client"
  output   = "../src/generated/prisma"
}

model User {
  id        Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
  email     String   @unique
  name      String?
}

Also make sure to install the Prisma CLI:

npm install prisma --save-dev

npx prisma

2. Installation

Install Prisma Client in your project with the following command:

npm install @prisma/client

3. Importing Prisma Client

There are multiple ways to import Prisma Client in your project depending on your use case:

import { PrismaClient } from "./generated/prisma";

const prisma = new PrismaClient();
// use `prisma` in your application to read and write data in your DB

const { PrismaClient } = require("./generated/prisma");

const prisma = new PrismaClient();
// use `prisma` in your application to read and write data in your DB

For edge environments, you can import Prisma Client as follows:

import { PrismaClient } from "./generated/prisma/edge";

const prisma = new PrismaClient();
// use `prisma` in your application to read and write data in your DB

const { PrismaClient } = require("./generated/prisma/edge");

const prisma = new PrismaClient();
// use `prisma` in your application to read and write data in your DB

Note: If you're using driver adapters, you can import from the location specified in your generator's output path directly, e.g. ./src/generated/prisma. No need to import from ./src/generated/prisma/edge.

4. Use Prisma Client to send queries to your database

Once you have instantiated PrismaClient, you can start sending queries in your code:

// run inside `async` function
const newUser = await prisma.user.create({
  data: {
    name: "Alice",
    email: "[email protected]",
  },
});

const users = await prisma.user.findMany();

:::info

All Prisma Client methods return an instance of PrismaPromise which only executes when you call await or .then() or .catch().

:::

5. Evolving your application

Whenever you make changes to your database that are reflected in the Prisma schema, you need to manually re-generate Prisma Client to update the generated code in your output directory:

prisma generate