BYO Database

Nitric currently has out of the box preview support for PostgreSQL databases, however Nitric allows you to use whatever tooling and ORMs you prefer for directly interfacing with your database. If you want to use a database that isn't managed by Nitric, we have the following recommendations:

• For local development, set up a container that runs alongside your Nitric processes.
• For a production environment, use any of the database services offered by your preferred cloud provider:

PostgreSQL

Image

For a local PostgreSQL instance, we recommend the official docker image. It has the following configuration variables:

• POSTGRES_USER
• POSTGRES_PASSWORD
• POSTGRES_DB

Connect

The official postgres driver is recommended for basic connections to a PostgreSQL instance. However, if you would prefer a higher abstraction, we recommend Prisma ORM. You can read our guide on using Prisma here.

import { Client } from 'pg'

const client = new Client()

await client.connect()

Run Locally

To start, make sure you have a .env file containing your environment variables.

POSTGRES_USER=root
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=root
POSTGRES_DB=my-database

You can then create a docker compose file to simplify running your docker container each time.

version: '3.6'
services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres
    restart: always
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=$POSTGRES_USER
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$POSTGRES_PASSWORD
      - POSTGRES_DB=$POSTGRES_DB

    ports:
      - '5432:5432'

You can add a script to your package.json which will run the docker compose file.

"scripts": {
  "db": "docker compose up --wait"
}

Then for any local development you can just run yarn db.

MySQL

Image

For a local MySQL instance, we recommend the official docker image. It has the following configuration variables:

• MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
• MYSQL_USER
• MYSQL_PASSWORD
• MYSQL_DATABASE

Connect

The official mysql driver is recommended for basic connections to a MySQL instance. However, if you would prefer a higher abstraction, we recommend Prisma ORM. You can read our guide on using Prisma here.

import mysql from 'mysql'

var con = mysql.createConnection({
  host: HOST,
  user: USERNAME,
  password: PASSWORD,
})

con.connect(function (err) {
  if (err) throw err
  console.log('Connected!')
})

You can then create a docker compose file to simplify running your docker container each time.

version: '3.6'
services:
  mysql:
    image: mysql
    restart: always
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
      - MYSQL_USER=$MYSQL_USER
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=$MYSQL_PASSWORD
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=$MYSQL_DATABASE

    ports:
      - '5432:5432'

You can add a script to your package.json which will run the docker compose file.

"scripts": {
  "db": "docker compose up --wait"
}

Then for any local development you can just run yarn db.

MongoDB

Image

For a local MongoDB instance, we recommend the official docker image. It has the following configuration variables:

• MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME
• MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD
• MONGO_INITDB_DATABASE

Connect

The official mongodb driver is recommended for basic connections to a MongoDB instance. However, if you would prefer a higher abstraction, we recommend Prisma ORM. You can read our guide on using Prisma here.

const client = new MongoClient(
  `mongodb://${USERNAME}:${PASSWORD}@${HOST}/${DATABASE}`,
)

await client.connect()

You can then create a docker compose file to simplify running your docker container each time.

version: '3.6'
services:
  mongodb:
    image: mongodb
    restart: always
    environment:
      - MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=$MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME
      - MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=$MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD
      - MONGO_INITDB_DATABASE=$MONGO_INITDB_DATABASE

    ports:
      - '27017:27017'

You can add a script to your package.json which will run the docker compose file.

"scripts": {
  "db": "docker compose up --wait"
}

Then for any local development you can just run yarn db.