Schema as Code: ORMs and External Tools

Atlas supports loading the desired state of your database schema directly from code, enabling true Schema as Code workflows. Whether your schema is generated by popular ORMs or external tools, regardless of programming language, Atlas can seamlessly integrate with it. Once loaded, the schema can be used by the various workflows and commands such as atlas schema and atlas migrate.

ORMs and Frameworks

Click here for guides on using various ORMs with Atlas

Loading an External Schema

In order to load an external schema, you need first to create an atlas.hcl config file, if you don't already have one and declare a new data source of type external_schema that can be used later as the desired state. Let's explain this with an example.

Given the following atlas.hcl file:

MySQL

atlas.hcl

data "external_schema" "orm" {
  # The first argument is the command to run,
  # and the rest are optional arguments.
  program = [
    "npm",
    "run",
    "generate-schema"
  ]
}

env "orm" {
  src = data.external_schema.orm.url
  dev = "docker://mysql/8/dev"
}

MariaDB

atlas.hcl

data "external_schema" "orm" {
  # The first argument is the command to run,
  # and the rest are optional arguments.
  program = [
    "npm",
    "run",
    "generate-schema"
  ]
}

env "orm" {
  src = data.external_schema.orm.url
  dev = "docker:/maria/latest/dev"
}

PostgreSQL

atlas.hcl

data "external_schema" "orm" {
  # The first argument is the command to run,
  # and the rest are optional arguments.
  program = [
    "npm",
    "run",
    "generate-schema"
  ]
}

env "orm" {
  src = data.external_schema.orm.url
  dev = "docker://postgres/15/dev?search_path=public"
}

SQLite

atlas.hcl

data "external_schema" "orm" {
  # The first argument is the command to run,
  # and the rest are optional arguments.
  program = [
    "npm",
    "run",
    "generate-schema"
  ]
}

env "orm" {
  src = data.external_schema.orm.url
  dev = "sqlite://dev?mode=memory"
}

Let's explain what is happening when running atlas with the --env orm command:

1. The external_schema.orm data source is loaded, by running the command npm run generate-schema and capturing its output as the desired state of the schema.
2. The program output should be defined as a list of SQL DDL statements separated by semicolon (;) or a custom delimiter. More info about the format can be found in the SQL schema page. For example:

   CREATE TABLE users (id int PRIMARY KEY, name text NOT NULL);
   
   CREATE TABLE posts (id int PRIMARY KEY, content text NOT NULL, author_id int NOT NULL REFERENCES users(id));
3. After the schema is loaded, Atlas utilizes the dev-database to parse and validate the SQL definition and converts them into its internal graph representation.
4. The loaded schema can be used by the various Atlas commands. For example:

   # Generating a new migration.
   atlas migrate diff --env orm
   # Applying the schema to the database.
   atlas schema apply --env orm

Supported ORMs

Atlas supports loading the desired schema from popular ORMs in various languages. By connecting their ORM to Atlas, developers can manage their Database as Code, allowing them to define and edit the schema using familiar ORM syntax. Atlas automatically plans schema migrations for them, eliminating the need to write them manually and enabling them to extend their ORMs with features not supported natively, such as triggers, row-level security, or functions. The supported ORMs are:

Language	ORMs	Supported Databases
Python	SQLAlchemy, Django	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite SQL Server
Go	GORM	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite SQL Server
Go	Ent, Beego	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite
Java	Hibernate	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite
JavaScript TypeScript	Sequelize, TypeORM, Prisma, Drizzle	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite SQL Server
PHP	Doctrine	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite SQL Server
C#	Entity Framework Core	MySQL MariaDB PostgreSQL SQLite SQL Server

If you are using an ORM that is not listed here and would like to see it supported, let us know!

Write an external loader

Most ORMs offer a way to generate a series of DDL statements from model definitions. For example, Java Hibernate enables "schema exporting" using the hbm2ddl option, and Microsoft EF supplies a helper method called GenerateCreateScript that lets users craft a small script to produce DDLs from their EF models. In a similar way, TypeORM users can use the createSchemaBuilder().log() API, and so on.

A fully working implementation can be found in the atlas-provider-gorm repository, which is an external loader for the GORM ORM.