Configuration

Configuration files, environment variables, and the schema/config wiring.

prisma.config.ts

The user-facing project configuration. Loaded by @prisma/config. See packages/config for implementation; PrismaConfigInternal for the parsed shape.

import { defineConfig, env } from 'prisma/config';

export default defineConfig({
  schema: 'prisma/schema.prisma',
  migrations: {
    path: 'prisma/migrations',
  },
  datasource: {
    url: env<{ DATABASE_URL: string }>('DATABASE_URL'),
  },
});

Notable behaviors:

• SQLite URLs are resolved relative to the config file, not the schema file.
• .env files are not auto-loaded. Use import 'dotenv/config', or a runtime that loads .env natively (Bun, node --env-file=.env, tsx --env-file=.env).
• loadedFromFile on PrismaConfigInternal flags whether the config came from disk.

Schema-level configuration

schema.prisma declares two non-model concerns:

• datasource db { provider = "..." } — only the provider in Prisma 7. URLs come from the config file.
• generator client { provider = "..." } — chooses between prisma-client (TS) and prisma-client-js (JS), plus output and per-generator settings.

Environment variables that affect Prisma

Variable	Effect
DEBUG=prisma:*	Enable internal debug logs
FORCE_PANIC_SCHEMA_ENGINE=1	Force Schema Engine panic on next migrate command
FORCE_PANIC_PRISMA_SCHEMA=1	Force PSL parser panic on next prisma format
FORCE_PANIC_GET_DMMF=1	Force panic in getDMMF
FORCE_PANIC_GET_CONFIG=1	Force panic in getConfig
PRISMA_HIDE_UPDATE_MESSAGE=1	Disable the CLI's update-available message
PRISMA_DISABLE_WARNINGS=1	Suppress non-fatal warnings
NO_COLOR=1	Disable terminal color output
Adapter-specific (e.g., DATABASE_URL)	Read by the user's prisma.config.ts via env(...)

The Force-panic variables are documented in CONTRIBUTING.md. DEBUG follows the standard debug package convention.

Workspace configuration

File	Purpose
pnpm-workspace.yaml	Workspace globs (packages/*)
turbo.json	Turborepo task graph (build, dev)
package.json (root)	Engines, scripts, dev deps, size-limit ceilings
tsconfig.json	Root TypeScript config (tsconfig.build.bundle.json for bundling)
.envrc	direnv hooks for contributor env
.db.env	Test database connection details
.npmrc	npm/pnpm settings
.prettierrc.yml	Prettier config
.prettierignore	Prettier ignore
eslint.config.cjs	ESLint flat config
eslint-local-rules/	Project-specific ESLint rules
.gitleaksignore	gitleaks (secret scanning) ignore
.husky/	Git hooks
vitest.config.ts	Root Vitest config
docker/docker-compose.yml	Test database containers

Engine pinning

• @prisma/engines-version — pinned via dependencies in many packages
• @prisma/engines — runtime download wrapper (postinstall)
• Override via packages/fetch-engine/package.json enginesOverride (see Custom engines)

See also

• packages/config
• Patterns and conventions
• Tooling