Document how to use Prisma in monorepos

[nikolasburk]

e.g. using:

• Yarn workspaces
• Lerna
• ngx

Note that there's a simple example with Yarn workspaces here: https://github.com/nikolasburk/monorepo-prisma

More context on the internal Slack:

screenshot

[johannesschobel]

I would like to add nrwl/nx ( https://github.com/nrwl/nx ) to the list of monorepos.

[tsongas]

Vercel just bought Turborepo I think this is going to become very important very quickly!

[yorch]

From what I've been testing, doesn't actually work when using ENV variables unless I place the .env file in the prisma directory.

So for instance, I have this monorepo with yarn workspaces

 |- packages/
     |- server/
         |- package.json
 |- prisma/
     |- schema.prisma
     |- package.json
 |- package.json
 |- .env

Seems like it needs to have the .env file in side the prisma directory instead of reading the file from the file on root

[Liam-Tait]

Related vercel/turborepo#979 (comment)

[zomars]

Yes please, also declaring .env files on the root of the monorepo break prisma env() function if prisma schema is not located at prisma/schema.prisma

[zomars]

From what I've been testing, doesn't actually work when using ENV variables unless I place the .env file in the prisma directory.

So for instance, I have this monorepo with yarn workspaces

 |- packages/
     |- server/
         |- package.json
 |- prisma/
     |- schema.prisma
     |- package.json
 |- package.json
 |- .env

Seems like it needs to have the .env file in side the prisma directory instead of reading the file from the file on root

Yes! +1 to this 🙌🏽

EDIT: Relevant issue as well prisma/prisma#12535

[leerob]

Related example: https://github.com/vercel/turborepo/tree/main/examples/with-prisma

[kokokenada]

I have an issue with monorepo using npm workspaces and prisma. The set up is there are two microservices that both use prisma (say packages/api1, packages/api2). If the same version of prisma is used in each, npm will create @prisma in the root node_modules. The generated .prisma files are installed as a sibling to @prisma, so api1 and api2 can clobber each other. One can specify where to generate the files, however, other dependencies (i.e. nestjs) uses @prisma/client to import, so the new location is ignored.

[nikolasburk]

however, other dependencies (i.e. nestjs) uses @prisma/client to import, so the new location is ignored.

@kokokenada Do you think this could be configurable in your NestJS app? If no, it might be worth opening an issue in the nest repo or submit a PR to add this option.

[kokokenada]

Thanks for the reply @nikolasburk, and yes, I also opened a ticket there: nestjs/nest#10150 and moved to notiz-dev/nestjs-prisma#31

[skworden]

I have the same issue as @kokoenada . I can't have a turborepo monorepo with two different Prisma schemas - Prisma gets confused about which schema to use.

[sebpowell]

I came across this thread whilst looking for a solution to this: vercel/turborepo#5610

Wondering if anyone has experienced a similar issue?

Edited: found the fix, see here in case it's of use to anyone: https://www.prisma.io/docs/guides/other/troubleshooting-orm/help-articles/nextjs-prisma-client-monorepo

[antonio-ivanovski]

For my case where the monorepo will have multiple packages with different schemas, I opted to generate separate prisma clients into separate directories.

// packages/accounts/prisma.schema

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
  output   = "./node_modules/@prisma/accounts-client" // <-- note this
  // output   = "./node_modules/@prisma/dashboard-client" // <-- for other package "dashboard"
}

// pacakges/accounts/src/...
import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/accounts-client';

// ...

Can anyone tell me if this is OK approach or I will have some unexpected issues along the way?