During performance investigations and optimizations, we noticed that the existing implementation added a CPU and memory overhead that was especially noticeable for larger Prisma schemas. Therefore, we found an alternative way to express our queries without needing that overhead: JSON.

To try out the new protocol, enable the jsonProtocol Preview feature in your Prisma schema:

generator client {
  provider        = "prisma-client-js"  
  previewFeatures = ["jsonProtocol"]
}

Regenerate Prisma Client to use the new JSON protocol.

For environments or situations where it is not viable to enable the Preview feature flag to your Prisma schema file, we also added an environment variable that you can use to force the use of the JSON Protocol Preview feature: PRISMA_ENGINE_PROTOCOL=json.

Note: This is an early Preview feature with a significant limitation: Invalid input to Prisma Client will throw unpolished, internal errors that are less descriptive and user-friendly than our usual ones. We intend to improve these future releases. Using it with Data Proxy and Prisma Data Platform currently also leads to errors.

We expect using jsonProtocol to improve Prisma Client's startup performance significantly. This will likely have a more significant impact on applications with larger Prisma schemas.

We would appreciate your feedback on this feature on the following particularly:

Does using this preview feature introduce any regressions or problems in your application?
If not, how does it influence the performance of your application? Can you share before and after measurements?

For feedback, please comment on the GitHub feedback issue.

Introspection support for MySQL, SQL Server, and CockroachDB views

You can now run prisma db pull against your database to populate your Prisma schema with your views in MySQL, SQL Server, and CockroachDB.

To learn more, refer to our documentation on views introspection. Try it out and let us know your thoughts in this GitHub issue.

Prisma Client extensions improvements: raw query operations

This release adds support for extending top-level raw query operations.

const prisma = new PrismaClient().$extends({
  query: {
    // relational databases
    $queryRaw({ args, query, operation }) {
      // handle $queryRaw operation
      return query(args)
    },
    $executeRaw({ args, query, operation }) {
      // handle $executeRaw operation
      return query(args)
    },
    $queryRawUnsafe({ args, query, operation }) {
      // handle $queryRawUnsafe operation
      return query(args)
    },
    $executeRawUnsafe({ args, query, operation }) {
      // handle $executeRawUnsafe operation
      return query(args)
    },
    // MongoDB
    $runCommandRaw({ args, query, operation }) {
      // handle $runCommandRaw operation
      return query(args)
    },
  },
})

Webpack plugin for Next.js apps using Prisma in monorepo setups

If you've been using Prisma Client in a Next.js app in a monorepo setup, you might have seen this infamous error message:

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open schema.prisma

We finally pinpointed the problem's source to the Next.js bundling step and opened an issue in the Next.js repository for Vercel to investigate and hopefully fix it.

In the meantime, we've created a workaround via a webpack plugin that makes sure your Prisma schema is copied to the correct location: @prisma/nextjs-monorepo-workaround-plugin.

To use the plugin, first install it: npm install -D @prisma/nextjs-monorepo-workaround-plugin

Import the plugin into your next.config.js file and use it in config.plugins:

const { PrismaPlugin } = require('@prisma/nextjs-monorepo-workaround-plugin')
module.exports = {
  webpack: (config, { isServer }) => {
    if (isServer) {
      config.plugins = [...config.plugins, new PrismaPlugin()]
    }
    return config
  },
}

For further information, refer to our documentation to learn how to use it and open an issue if it doesn't work as expected.

Fixes and improvements

Prisma Client

Prisma Migrate

Credits

Huge thanks to @KhooHaoYit, @rintaun, @ivan, @Mini256, @Lioness100, @yukukotani, @sandrewTx08, @fubhy, @zachtil, @unflxw, @Mosaab-Emam for helping!

📺 Join us for another "What's new in Prisma" live stream

Learn about the latest release and other news from the Prisma community by joining us for another "What's new in Prisma" live stream.

The stream takes place on YouTube on Thursday, March 2 at 5 pm Berlin | 8 am San Francisco.