/cloudflare-deploy

Cloudflare D1 Database

Expert guidance for Cloudflare D1, a serverless SQLite database designed for horizontal scale-out across multiple databases.

Overview

D1 is Cloudflare's managed, serverless database with:

• SQLite SQL semantics and compatibility
• Built-in disaster recovery via Time Travel (30-day point-in-time recovery)
• Horizontal scale-out architecture (10 GB per database)
• Worker and HTTP API access
• Pricing based on query and storage costs only

Architecture Philosophy: D1 is optimized for per-user, per-tenant, or per-entity database patterns rather than single large databases.

Quick Start

# Create database
wrangler d1 create <database-name>

# Execute migration
wrangler d1 migrations apply <db-name> --remote

# Local development
wrangler dev

Core Query Methods

// .all() - Returns all rows; .first() - First row or null; .first(col) - Single column value
// .run() - INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE; .raw() - Array of arrays (efficient)
const { results, success, meta } = await env.DB.prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = ?').bind(true).all();
const user = await env.DB.prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?').bind(userId).first();

Batch Operations

// Multiple queries in single round trip (atomic transaction)
const results = await env.DB.batch([
  env.DB.prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?').bind(1),
  env.DB.prepare('SELECT * FROM posts WHERE author_id = ?').bind(1),
  env.DB.prepare('UPDATE users SET last_access = ? WHERE id = ?').bind(Date.now(), 1)
]);

Sessions API (Paid Plans)

// Create long-running session for analytics/migrations (up to 15 minutes)
const session = env.DB.withSession();
try {
  await session.prepare('CREATE INDEX idx_heavy ON large_table(column)').run();
  await session.prepare('ANALYZE').run();
} finally {
  session.close(); // Always close to release resources
}

Read Replication (Paid Plans)

// Read from nearest replica for lower latency (automatic failover)
const user = await env.DB_REPLICA.prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?').bind(userId).first();

// Writes always go to primary
await env.DB.prepare('UPDATE users SET last_login = ? WHERE id = ?').bind(Date.now(), userId).run();

Platform Limits

Pricing: $5/month per database beyond free tier + $0.001 per 1K reads + $1 per 1M writes + $0.75/GB storage/month

CLI Commands

# Database management
wrangler d1 create <db-name>
wrangler d1 list
wrangler d1 delete <db-name>

# Migrations
wrangler d1 migrations create <db-name> <migration-name>    # Create new migration file
wrangler d1 migrations apply <db-name> --remote             # Apply pending migrations
wrangler d1 migrations apply <db-name> --local              # Apply locally
wrangler d1 migrations list <db-name> --remote              # Show applied migrations

# Direct SQL execution
wrangler d1 execute <db-name> --remote --command="SELECT * FROM users"
wrangler d1 execute <db-name> --local --file=./schema.sql

# Backups & Import/Export
wrangler d1 export <db-name> --remote --output=./backup.sql  # Full export with schema
wrangler d1 export <db-name> --remote --no-schema --output=./data.sql  # Data only
wrangler d1 time-travel restore <db-name> --timestamp="2024-01-15T14:30:00Z"  # Point-in-time recovery

# Development
wrangler dev --persist-to=./.wrangler/state

Reading Order

Start here: Quick Start above → configuration.md (setup) → api.md (queries)

Common tasks:

• First time setup: configuration.md → Run migrations
• Adding queries: api.md → Prepared statements
• Pagination/caching: patterns.md
• Production optimization: Read Replication + Sessions API (this file)
• Debugging: gotchas.md

In This Reference

• configuration.md - wrangler.jsonc setup, migrations, TypeScript types, ORMs, local dev
• api.md - Query methods (.all/.first/.run/.raw), batch, sessions, read replicas, error handling
• patterns.md - Pagination, bulk operations, caching, multi-tenant, sessions, analytics
• gotchas.md - SQL injection, limits by plan tier, performance, common errors

See Also

• workers - Worker runtime and fetch handler patterns
• hyperdrive - Connection pooling for external databases