I think I'm missing something about how migrations are supposed to be used. Specifically I don't understand why to update my schema during development I need to point prisma to a running database instance. I get that

migrate deploy

needs to point to an actual database instance but why does

migrate dev

? To do its work it just needs the schema and the list of previous migrations, no?

It needs to point to a DB instance because it also checks if all migrations are applied.

Is there a way to force it not to do that check?

Then you need to use

prisma db push

Unless I misunderstand something that doesn't update the schema

So, the migrate dev command is specifically for creating a migration locally and apply it to the database. From the docs:

Prisma Migrate generates a history of

.sql

migration files, and plays a role in both development and deployment.

They also mention this:

If you are prototyping, consider using the db push command

OK so db push updates the schema?

Yes, it is for rapid prototyping and development.

Sorry that's not exact. I mean that I need to regenerate my client after I make a change to the schema.

Ah! You can simply run

prisma generate

Ah ok. So if I make a change I can run prisma generate and then at some later point when the db is up and running run the migration

No, Prisma generate doesn’t create a migration at all

Yeah, sorry if that seemed confusing. I understand that. Thanks

No problem, glad to help :)