prisma init

Bootstraps a fresh Prisma ORM project in the current directory.

Command

prisma init [options]

Bun Runtime

If you're using Bun, run Prisma with bunx --bun so it doesn't fall back to Node.js:

bunx --bun prisma init

What It Creates

prisma/schema.prisma - Your Prisma schema file
prisma.config.ts - TypeScript configuration for Prisma CLI
.env - Environment variables (DATABASE_URL)
.gitignore - Ensures .env is ignored and appends the generated client path

Options

Option	Description	Default
`--datasource-provider`	Database provider: `postgresql`, `mysql`, `sqlite`, `sqlserver`, `mongodb`, `cockroachdb`	`postgresql`
`--db`	Provisions a fully managed Prisma Postgres database on the Prisma Data Platform	-
`--url`	Define a custom datasource url	-
`--generator-provider`	Define the generator provider to use	`prisma-client`
`--output`	Define Prisma Client generator output path to use	-
`--preview-feature`	Define a preview feature to use	-
`--with-model`	Add example model to created schema file	-
`--no-skills`	Skip the best-effort installation of Prisma agent skills	-

prisma init attempts to install prisma/skills for detected agents. This is best-effort and does not make project initialization fail. Use --no-skills in minimal or controlled environments.

Examples

Basic initialization

prisma init

Creates a PostgreSQL project setup.

SQLite project

prisma init --datasource-provider sqlite

MySQL with custom URL

prisma init --datasource-provider mysql --url "mysql://user:password@localhost:3306/mydb"

Prisma Postgres (cloud)

prisma init --db

Opens browser for authentication, creates cloud database instance.

Add an example model

prisma init --with-model

Adds a starter model to the generated schema.

With preview features

prisma init --preview-feature relationJoins --preview-feature fullTextSearch

Generated Schema

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

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
}

Generated Config (Node.js default)

// prisma.config.ts
import "dotenv/config";
import { defineConfig } from 'prisma/config'

export default defineConfig({
  schema: 'prisma/schema.prisma',
  migrations: {
    path: 'prisma/migrations',
  },
  datasource: {
    url: process.env['DATABASE_URL'],
  },
})

Generated Config (Bun)

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

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

Next Steps After Init

Configure DATABASE_URL in .env (and let prisma.config.ts read it)
Define your models in prisma/schema.prisma
Run prisma dev for local development or connect to remote DB
Run prisma migrate dev to create migrations
Run prisma generate to generate Prisma Client
Run prisma db seed explicitly if you want seed data

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