Get Started with Drizzle and CockroachDB

WARNING

This page explains concepts available on drizzle versions 1.0.0-beta.2 and higher.

This guide assumes familiarity with:

• dotenv - package for managing environment variables - read here
• tsx - package for running TypeScript files - read here
• node-postgres - package for querying your PostgreSQL database - read here

Drizzle has native support for CockroachDB connections with the node-postgres and postgres.js drivers.

We will use node-postgres for this get started example. But if you want to find more ways to connect to postgresql check our CockroachDB Connection page

Basic file structure

This is the basic file structure of the project. In the src/db directory, we have table definition in schema.ts. In drizzle folder there are sql migration file and snapshots.

📦 <project root>
 ├ 📂 drizzle
 ├ 📂 src
 │   ├ 📂 db
 │   │  └ 📜 schema.ts
 │   └ 📜 index.ts
 ├ 📜 .env
 ├ 📜 drizzle.config.ts
 ├ 📜 package.json
 └ 📜 tsconfig.json

Step 1 - Install node-postgres package

npm i drizzle-orm@beta pg dotenv
npm i -D drizzle-kit@beta tsx @types/pg

yarn add drizzle-orm@beta pg dotenv
yarn add -D drizzle-kit@beta tsx @types/pg

pnpm add drizzle-orm@beta pg dotenv
pnpm add -D drizzle-kit@beta tsx @types/pg

bun add drizzle-orm@beta pg dotenv
bun add -D drizzle-kit@beta tsx @types/pg

Step 2 - Setup connection variables

Create a .env file in the root of your project and add your database connection variable:

Step 3 - Connect Drizzle ORM to the database

Create a index.ts file in the src/db directory and initialize the connection:

node-postgres

node-postgres with config

your node-postgres driver

import 'dotenv/config';
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/cockroach';

const db = drizzle(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);

import 'dotenv/config';
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/cockroach';

// You can specify any property from the node-postgres connection options
const db = drizzle({ 
  connection: { 
    connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL!,
    ssl: true
  }
});

import 'dotenv/config';
import { drizzle } from "drizzle-orm/cockroach";
import { Pool } from "pg";

const pool = new Pool({
  connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL!,
});
const db = drizzle({ client: pool });

Step 4 - Create a table

Create a schema.ts file in the src/db directory and declare your table:

import { int4, cockroachTable, varchar } from "drizzle-orm/cockroach-core";

export const usersTable = cockroachTable("users", {
  id: int4().primaryKey().generatedAlwaysAsIdentity(),
  name: varchar({ length: 255 }).notNull(),
  age: int4().notNull(),
  email: varchar({ length: 255 }).notNull().unique(),
});

Step 5 - Setup Drizzle config file

Drizzle config - a configuration file that is used by Drizzle Kit and contains all the information about your database connection, migration folder and schema files.

Create a drizzle.config.ts file in the root of your project and add the following content:

import 'dotenv/config';
import { defineConfig } from 'drizzle-kit';

export default defineConfig({
  out: './drizzle',
  schema: './src/db/schema.ts',
  dialect: 'cockroach',
  dbCredentials: {
    url: process.env.DATABASE_URL!,
  },
});

Step 6 - Applying changes to the database

You can directly apply changes to your database using the drizzle-kit push command. This is a convenient method for quickly testing new schema designs or modifications in a local development environment, allowing for rapid iterations without the need to manage migration files:

npx drizzle-kit push

Read more about the push command in documentation.

Tips

Alternatively, you can generate migrations using the drizzle-kit generate command and then apply them using the drizzle-kit migrate command:

Generate migrations:

npx drizzle-kit generate

Apply migrations:

npx drizzle-kit migrate

Read more about migration process in documentation.

Step 7 - Seed and Query the database

Let’s update the src/index.ts file with queries to create, read, update, and delete users

import 'dotenv/config';
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/cockroach';
import { eq } from 'drizzle-orm';
import { usersTable } from './db/schema';
  
const db = drizzle(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);

async function main() {
  const user: typeof usersTable.$inferInsert = {
    name: 'John',
    age: 30,
    email: 'john@example.com',
  };

  await db.insert(usersTable).values(user);
  console.log('New user created!')

  const users = await db.select().from(usersTable);
  console.log('Getting all users from the database: ', users)
  /*
  const users: {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    age: number;
    email: string;
  }[]
  */

  await db
    .update(usersTable)
    .set({
      age: 31,
    })
    .where(eq(usersTable.email, user.email));
  console.log('User info updated!')

  await db.delete(usersTable).where(eq(usersTable.email, user.email));
  console.log('User deleted!')
}

main();

Step 8 - Run index.ts file

To run any TypeScript files, you have several options, but let’s stick with one: using tsx

You’ve already installed tsx, so we can run our queries now

Run index.ts script

npx tsx src/index.ts

yarn tsx src/index.ts

pnpm tsx src/index.ts

bunx tsx src/index.ts

tips

We suggest using bun to run TypeScript files. With bun, such scripts can be executed without issues or additional settings, regardless of whether your project is configured with CommonJS (CJS), ECMAScript Modules (ESM), or any other module format. To run a script with bun, use the following command:

bun src/index.ts

If you don’t have bun installed, check the Bun installation docs