/prisma-orm-setup

Prisma Client Setup

Generate and instantiate Prisma ORM 7 Client for SQL providers. For MongoDB, follow Prisma 6 MongoDB setup. For an existing Prisma 6 SQL app, preserve its client setup rather than copying these examples.

1. Install dependencies

npm install --save-dev prisma@7
npm install @prisma/client@7 dotenv

For an existing application, retain its pinned releases. For a new Prisma 7 application, use compatible CLI, client, and adapter versions and check the Prisma 7 runtime requirements.

2. Add generator block

In prisma/schema.prisma:

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

prisma-client requires an explicit output path and does not generate into node_modules by default.

3. Generate Prisma Client

npx prisma generate

Re-run prisma generate after every schema change to keep the client in sync.

4. Instantiate Prisma Client

import 'dotenv/config'
import { PrismaClient } from '../generated/client'
import { PrismaPg } from '@prisma/adapter-pg'

const adapter = new PrismaPg({ connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL })
const prisma = new PrismaClient({ adapter })

If you change the generator output, update the import path to match. For the SQL provider workflow, replace PrismaPg with the adapter for your database.

5. Use a single instance

Each PrismaClient instance creates a connection pool. Reuse a single instance per app process to avoid exhausting database connections.