Astro DB

Astro DB is a fully-managed SQL database designed exclusively for Astro. Develop locally or connect to a hosted database managed on our Astro Studio platform.

Installation

Section titled Installation

Add Astro DB to a new or existing Astro project (requires astro@4.5 or later) with the @astrojs/db integration (v0.8.1 or later). Astro includes a built-in astro add command to automate this setup process for you.

npm

npx astro add db

pnpm

pnpm astro add db

Yarn

yarn astro add db

If you prefer, you can install @astrojs/db manually instead.

Define your database

Section titled Define your database

Astro DB is a complete solution to configuring, developing and querying your data. A local database is created whenever you run astro dev, using LibSQL to manage your data without the need for Docker or a network connection.

Installing @astrojs/db with the astro add command will create a db/config.ts file in your project where you will define your databases tables:

db/config.ts

import { defineDb } from 'astro:db';

export default defineDb({
  tables: { },
})

Tables

Section titled Tables

Data in Astro DB is stored using SQL tables. Tables structure your data into rows and columns, where columns enforce the type of each row value.

When you define a table, Astro will generate a TypeScript interface to query that table from your project. The result is full TypeScript support when you access your data with property autocompletion and type-checking.

To configure a database table, import and use the defineTable() and column utilities from astro:db.

This example configures a Comment table with required text columns for author and body. Then, make it available to your project through the defineDb() export.

db/config.ts

import { defineDb, defineTable, column } from 'astro:db';

const Comment = defineTable({
  columns: {
    author: column.text(),
    body: column.text(),
  }
})

export default defineDb({
  tables: { Comment },
})

See the table configuration reference for a complete reference of table options.

Columns

Section titled Columns

Astro DB supports the following column types:

db/config.ts

import { defineTable, column } from 'astro:db';

const Comment = defineTable({
  columns: {
    // A string of text.
    author: column.text(),
    // A whole integer value.
    likes: column.number(),
    // A true or false value.
    flagged: column.boolean(),
    // Date/time values queried as JavaScript Date objects.
    published: column.date(),
    // An untyped JSON object.
    metadata: column.json(),
  }
});

See the table columns reference for more details.

Table References

Section titled Table References

Relationships between tables are a common pattern in database design. For example, a Blog table may be closely related to other tables of Comment, Author, and Category.

You can define these relations between tables and save them into your database schema using reference columns. To establish a relationship, you will need:

• An identifier column on the referenced table. This is usually an id column with the primaryKey property.
• A column on the base table to store the referenced id. This uses the references property to establish a relationship.

This example shows a Comment table’s authorId column referencing an Author table’s id column.

db/config.ts

const Author = defineTable({
  columns: {
    id: column.number({ primaryKey: true }),
    name: column.text(),
  }
});

const Comment = defineTable({
  columns: {
    authorId: column.number({ references: () => Author.columns.id }),
    content: column.text(),
  }
});

Seed your database

Section titled Seed your database

In development, Astro will use your DB config to generate local types according to your schemas. These will be generated fresh each time the dev server is started, and will allow you to query and work with the shape of your data with type safety and autocompletion.

To seed development data for testing and debugging into your Astro project, create a db/seed.ts file. Import both the db object and any configured table from astro:db. Use the db.insert() function to provide an array of table row data objects.

The following example defines two rows of development data for a Comment table:

db/seed.ts

import { db, Comment } from 'astro:db';

export default async function() {
  await db.insert(Comment).values([
    { authorId: 1, body: 'Hope you like Astro DB!' },
    { authorId: 2, body: 'Enjoy!'},
  ])
}

Your development server will automatically restart your database whenever this file changes, regenerating your types and seeding your development data from seed.ts.

Query your database

Section titled Query your database

You can query your database from any Astro page or endpoint in your project using the provided db ORM and query builder.

Drizzle ORM

Section titled Drizzle ORM

import { db } from 'astro:db';

Astro DB includes a built-in Drizzle ORM client. There is no setup or manual configuration required to use the client. The Astro DB db client is automatically configured to talk to your database (local or remote) when you run Astro. It uses your exact database schema definition for type-safe SQL queries with TypeScript errors when you reference a column or table that doesn’t exist.

Select

Section titled Select

The following example selects all rows of a Comment table. This returns the complete array of seeded development data from db/seed.ts which is then available for use in your page template:

src/pages/index.astro

---
import { db, Comment } from 'astro:db';

const comments = await db.select().from(Comment);
---

<h2>Comments</h2>

{
  comments.map(({ author, body }) => (
    <article>
      <p>Author: {author}</p>
      <p>{body}</p>
    </article>
  ))
}

See the Drizzle select() API reference for a complete overview.

Insert

Section titled Insert

To accept user input, such as handling form requests and inserting data into your remote hosted database, configure your Astro project for on-demand rendering and add an SSR adapter for your deployment environment.

This example inserts a row into a Comment table based on a parsed form POST request:

src/pages/index.astro

---
import { db, Comment } from 'astro:db';

if (Astro.request.method === 'POST') {
  // parse form data
  const formData = await Astro.request.formData();
  const author = formData.get('author');
  const content = formData.get('content');
  if (typeof author === 'string' && typeof content === 'string') {
    // insert form data into the Comment table
    await db.insert(Comment).values({ author, content });
  }
}

// render the new list of comments on each request
const comments = await db.select().from(Comment);
---

<form method="POST" style="display: grid">
  <label for="author">Author</label>
  <input id="author" name="author" />

  <label for="content">Content</label>
  <textarea id="content" name="content"></textarea>

  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

<!--render `comments`-->

You can also query your database from an API endpoint. This example deletes a row from a Comment table by the id param:

src/pages/api/comments/[id].ts

import type { APIRoute } from "astro";
import { db, Comment, eq } from 'astro:db';

export const DELETE: APIRoute = async (ctx) => {
  await db.delete(Comment).where(eq(Comment.id, ctx.params.id ));
  return new Response(null, { status: 204 });
}

See the Drizzle insert() API reference for a complete overview.

Filtering

Section titled Filtering

To query for table results by a specific property, use Drizzle options for partial selects. For example, add a .where() call to your select() query and pass the comparison you want to make.

The following example queries for all rows in a Comment table that contain the phrase “Astro DB.” Use the like() operator to check if a phrase is present within the body:

src/pages/index.astro

---
import { db, Comment, like } from 'astro:db';

const comments = await db.select().from(Comment).where(
    like(Comment.body, '%Astro DB%')
);
---

Drizzle utilities

Section titled Drizzle utilities

All Drizzle utilities for building queries are exposed from the astro:db module. This includes:

• Filter operators like eq() and gt()
• Aggregation helpers like count()
• The sql helper for writing raw SQL queries

import { eq, gt, count, sql } from 'astro:db';

Relationships

Section titled Relationships

You can query related data from multiple tables using a SQL join. To create a join query, extend your db.select() statement with a join operator. Each function accepts a table to join with and a condition to match rows between the two tables.

This example uses an innerJoin() function to join Comment authors with their related Author information based on the authorId column. This returns an array of objects with each Author and Comment row as top-level properties:

src/pages/index.astro

---
import { db, eq, Comment, Author } from 'astro:db';

const comments = await db.select()
  .from(Comment)
  .innerJoin(Author, eq(Comment.authorId, Author.id));
---

<h2>Comments</h2>

{
  comments.map(({ Author, Comment }) => (
    <article>
      <p>Author: {Author.name}</p>
      <p>{Comment.body}</p>
    </article>
  ))
}

See the Drizzle join reference for all available join operators and config options.

Batch Transactions

Section titled Batch Transactions

All remote database queries are made as a network request. You may need to “batch” queries together into a single transaction when making a large number of queries, or to have automatic rollbacks if any query fails.

This example seeds multiple rows in a single request using the db.batch() method:

db/seed.ts

import { db, Author, Comment } from 'astro:db';

export default async function () {
  const queries = [];
  // Seed 100 sample comments into your remote database
  // with a single network request.
  for (let i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
    queries.push(db.insert(Comment).values({ body: `Test comment ${i}` }));
  }
  await db.batch(queries);
}

See the Drizzle db.batch() docs for more details.

Astro Studio

Section titled Astro Studio

Studio feature

Astro DB can connect to the Astro Studio platform to quickly add a hosted database to your project. You can view, manage and deploy new hosted databases all from the Astro Studio dashboard.

To create a new project, you can use a ready-made template or visit the Astro Studio guide.

Pushing table schemas

Section titled Pushing table schemas

Studio feature

Your table schema will change overtime as your project grows. You can safely test configuration changes locally and push to your Studio database when you deploy.

When creating a Studio project from the dashboard, you will have the option to create a GitHub CI action. This will automatically migrate schema changes when merging with your repository’s main branch.

You can also push your local schema changes to Astro Studio via the CLI using the astro db push --remote command:

npm

npm run astro db push --remote

pnpm

pnpm astro db push --remote

Yarn

yarn astro db push --remote

This command will verify that your local changes can be made without data loss and, if necessary, suggest how to safely make changes to your schema in order to resolve conflicts.

Pushing breaking schema changes

Section titled Pushing breaking schema changes

Caution

This will destroy your database. Only perform this command if you do not need your production data.

If you must change your table schema in a way that is incompatible with your existing data hosted at Astro Studio, you will need to reset your production database.

To push a table schema update that includes a breaking change, add the --force-reset flag to reset all production data:

npm

npm run astro db push --remote --force-reset

pnpm

pnpm astro db push --remote --force-reset

Yarn

yarn astro db push --remote --force-reset

Renaming tables

Section titled Renaming tables

Studio feature

It is possible to rename a table after pushing your schema to Astro Studio.

If you do not have any important production data, then you can reset your database using the --force-reset flag. This flag will drop all of the tables in the database and create new ones so that it matches your current schema exactly.

To rename a table while preserving your production data, you must perform a series of non-breaking changes to push your local schema to Astro studio safely.

The following example renames a table from Comment to Feedback:

1. In your database config file, add the deprecated: true property to the table you want to rename:

   db/config.ts

   const Comment = defineTable({
     deprecated: true,
     columns: {
       author: column.text(),
       body: column.text(),
     }
   });

2. Add a new table schema (matching the existing table’s properties exactly) with the new name:

   db/config.ts

   const Comment = defineTable({
     deprecated: true,
     columns: {
       author: column.text(),
       body: column.text(),
     }
   });
   
   const Feedback = defineTable({
     columns: {
       author: column.text(),
       body: column.text(),
     }
   });

3. Push to Astro Studio with astro db push --remote. This will add the new table and mark the old as deprecated.

4. Update any of your local project code to use the new table instead of the old table. You might need to migrate data to the new table as well.

5. Once you are confident that the old table is no longer used in your project, you can remove the schema from your config.ts:

   db/config.ts

   const Comment = defineTable({
     deprecated: true,
     columns: {
       author: column.text(),
       body: column.text(),
     }
   });
   
   const Feedback = defineTable({
     columns: {
       author: column.text(),
       body: column.text(),
     }
   });

6. Push to Astro Studio again with astro db push --remote. The old table will be dropped, leaving only the new, renamed table.

Pushing data

Section titled Pushing data

Studio feature

You may need to push data to your Studio database for seeding or data migrations. You can author a .ts file with the astro:db module to write type-safe queries. Then, execute the file against your Studio database using the command astro db execute <file-path> --remote:

The following Comments can be seeded using the command astro db execute db/seed.ts --remote:

db/seed.ts

import { Comment } from 'astro:db';

export default async function () {
  await db.insert(Comment).values([
    { authorId: 1, body: 'Hope you like Astro DB!' },
    { authorId: 2, body: 'Enjoy!' },
  ])
}

See the CLI reference for a complete list of commands.

Connect to Astro Studio

Section titled Connect to Astro Studio

Studio feature

By default, Astro will use a local database file whenever you run the dev or build commands. Tables are recreated from scratch when each command is run, and development seed data will be inserted.

To connect to your hosted Studio database, you can add the --remote flag. Use this flag for production deploys to have both readable and writable access to your Studio database. This will allow you to accept and persist user data.

# Build with a remote connection
astro build --remote

# Develop with a remote connection
astro dev --remote

Caution

Be careful using --remote in development. This will connect to a live production database, and all inserts, updates, or deletions will be persisted.

To use a remote connection, you will need an app token to authenticate with Studio. Visit the Studio dashboard for token creation and setup instructions.

When you’re ready to deploy, see our Deploy with a Studio Connection guide.

Building Astro DB integrations

Section titled Building Astro DB integrations

Astro integrations can extend user projects with additional Astro DB tables and seed data.

Use the extendDb() method in the astro:db:setup hook to register additional Astro DB config and seed files. The defineDbIntegration() helper provides TypeScript support and auto-complete for the astro:db:setup hook.

my-integration/index.ts

import { defineDbIntegration } from '@astrojs/db/utils';

export default function MyIntegration() {
  return defineDbIntegration({
    name: 'my-astro-db-powered-integration',
    hooks: {
      'astro:db:setup': ({ extendDb }) => {
        extendDb({
          configEntrypoint: '@astronaut/my-package/config',
          seedEntrypoint: '@astronaut/my-package/seed',
        });
      },
      // Other integration hooks...
    },
  });
}

Integration config and seed files follow the same format as their user-defined equivalents.

Type safe operations in integrations

Section titled Type safe operations in integrations

While working on integrations, you may not be able to benefit from Astro’s generated table types exported from astro:db. For full type safety, use the asDrizzleTable() utility to create a table reference object you can use for database operations.

For example, given an integration setting up the following Pets database table:

my-integration/config.ts

import { defineDb, defineTable, column } from 'astro:db';

export const Pets = defineTable({
  columns: {
    name: column.text(),
    species: column.text(),
  },
});

export default defineDb({ tables: { Pets } });

The seed file can import Pets and use asDrizzleTable() to insert rows into your table with type checking:

my-integration/seed.ts

import { asDrizzleTable } from '@astrojs/db/utils';
import { db } from 'astro:db';
import { Pets } from './config';

export default async function() {
  const typeSafePets = asDrizzleTable('Pets', Pets);

  await db.insert(typeSafePets).values([
    { name: 'Palomita', species: 'cat' },
    { name: 'Pan', species: 'dog' },
  ]);
}

The value returned by asDrizzleTable('Pets', Pets) is equivalent to import { Pets } from 'astro:db', but is available even when Astro’s type generation can’t run. You can use it in any integration code that needs to query or insert into the database.

Self-hosted production deployment

Section titled Self-hosted production deployment

If you deploy your site to a self-managed host such as a virtual private server, you can choose to use a database file instead of connecting to a database hosted at Astro Studio.

Caution

Using a database file is an advanced feature, and care should be taken when deploying to prevent overriding your database and losing your production data.

Additionally, this method will not work in serverless deployments, as the file system is not persisted in those environments.

For a fully managed solution, connect to databases hosted on the Astro Studio platform instead.

If you are comfortable with the risks, and can manage deployment yourself, you can use a database file instead of connecting to Studio.

Set the ASTRO_DATABASE_FILE environment variable to a path pointing to your .db file within the host environment during your build:

ASTRO_DATABASE_FILE=/srv/files/database.db astro build

The build will statically compile with this path as your production database. When you deploy and launch your server it will connect to the file at this path on the production host.

Additionally, pushing any table schema changes (also known as “schema migrations”) must be managed manually using this environment variable.

Danger

If you override your .db file on deployment, you will lose your production data. Follow the deployment method process for your host carefully to prevent data loss.