Prisma ORM setup skill: set up or repair Prisma 6, 7 and 8 with an agent

Source: prisma/skills · Maintainer: Prisma · License: MIT · Checked: 27 October 2026

What is the prisma-orm-setup skill?

prisma-orm-setup is Prisma's official skill for getting Prisma ORM working in an app. It tells a coding agent how to choose the ORM version, set up or connect the database, and prove the connection with a real query. New apps default to Prisma ORM 8, while existing Prisma 6 and 7 apps stay on the version they already use.

The description reads: "Set up Prisma ORM in an application, connect its database, or troubleshoot the connection of an existing Prisma 6, 7, or 8 app." The SKILL.md opens with the rule it is built around: "Preserve the application's ORM version and intended database. A connection repair does not require a major upgrade."

It is the current name of the skill many people know as prisma-database-setup. That folder is now a stub whose description reads: "Deprecated compatibility name for prisma-orm-setup." The old name still had about 392,900 installs on skills.sh on 27 October 2026, and updated copies of it now hold only a pointer, not recipes.

As of 27 October 2026, the prisma-orm-setup skills.sh page listed about 70,600 installs (snapshot, 27 October 2026). The frontmatter gives version 1.0.0, author prisma and license MIT.

What does it do?

The SKILL.md is about 6.8 KB and works as a router in six steps.

1. Detect the starting point. The agent reads the package manifest, lockfile, Prisma config, schema and imports. It warns that "The CLI version alone does not identify the application's version", because a Prisma 8 CLI can sit next to a legacy client.

2. Keep upgrades separate. If you ask for a major upgrade, it hands off: PostgreSQL 7 to 8 goes to Prisma's migration guide, MongoDB 6 to 8 to the prisma-mongodb-upgrade skill, and 6 to 7 to prisma-upgrade-v7.

3. Bootstrap a new Prisma 8 app. The agent pins a published Prisma CLI 8 release instead of trusting latest, then runs, for PostgreSQL:

prisma orm init --yes --target postgres --authoring psl

Prisma's orm init docs list postgres or mongodb for --target and psl or typescript for --authoring.

4. Load the Prisma 8 guidance. It runs prisma skills sync, then reads the synced prisma-8/SKILL.md, for example .agents/skills/prisma-8/SKILL.md. That skill ships inside the ORM packages, lives in the prisma/orm repo, and covers Prisma 8's contract, migrations and queries. The setup skill is blunt that "Syncing alone does not load the instructions."

5. Set up or repair an earlier version. For Prisma 6 and 7 it keeps packages on their major and uses its own references:

A v7-client-setup.md file covers the prisma-client generator, which needs an explicit output path, and creating one PrismaClient with a driver adapter such as PrismaPg. The skill says the Prisma 7 SQL examples "were verified with Prisma 7.10.0; the MongoDB examples with Prisma 6.19.3." For Prisma 6 SQL apps, it says not to copy the Prisma 7 config or adapter examples.

6. Connect and verify. The agent loads the right environment file for the CLI and the app without printing secrets, diagnoses the connection before any schema-changing command, then runs a read-only query through the app's client. It reports the ORM version and the query result, because "Package installation or a successful skill sync alone is not a completed setup."

How do you install the Prisma ORM setup skill?

The repo README documents the skills CLI:

npx skills add prisma/skills --skill prisma-orm-setup

For the default Prisma Postgres workflow, the README says to install prisma-postgres-setup as well. The CLI takes --skill more than once:

npx skills add prisma/skills --skill prisma-orm-setup --skill prisma-postgres-setup

Add -g for all projects or -a claude-code to target Claude Code. For Claude Code, folders land in .claude/skills/ in your project, or ~/.claude/skills/ with -g, the standard Claude Code skill locations. Codex and Cursor read the same SKILL.md format; see Codex skills and Cursor skills.

There are no API keys in the skill. You need Node.js and a database or connection string. Prisma's release status page lists Prisma 8's runtime requirements as Node.js 22.18 or newer on the 22 line, 24.11 or newer on the 24 line, or 26 or newer, plus TypeScript 5.9 or newer.

How do you use it?

Describe the goal and the database. The skill is model-invoked, so setup or connection requests load it.

Example prompts (suggestions, not from the repo):

• Add Prisma to this Next.js app with PostgreSQL. Use my existing DATABASE_URL.
• Our Prisma 7 app can't reach the database after moving to a new host. Fix the connection without upgrading.
• Set up Prisma with SQL Server for this API.
• I need a database for this side project. Set up Prisma Postgres and prove it works with a query.

Expect the agent to read your manifest, lockfile and schema before it changes anything. For SQL Server, the agent should explain that Prisma 8 doesn't support it yet and offer Prisma 7, since the skill says to keep the requested database and "not silently fall back".

Tips and limits

From the repo, Prisma's docs and skills.sh, not from testing:

• Prisma 8 is still a release candidate. Prisma's release status page says general availability "is expected in October 2026". Its supported databases page lists PostgreSQL as release candidate, MongoDB as early access and SQLite as experimental.
• MySQL and friends stay on 7. MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server and CockroachDB have no Prisma 8 library yet, and Prisma's page says Prisma ORM 7 supports them.
• Prisma 6 support is ending. The release status page says Prisma 6 gets only security patches, until 19 November 2026. Prisma 7 gets fixes for 18 months after Prisma 8 reaches general availability.
• The real Prisma 8 rules live elsewhere. This skill routes; the prisma-8 skill holds the detail. If prisma skills sync fails, the skill tells the agent to report the blocker rather than guess.
• Audits. On skills.sh, Gen Agent Trust Hub rated it Pass (Safe) on 29 September 2026. Its notes flag that the skill installs npm packages and that prisma skills sync writes files the agent then follows. Socket and Snyk both rated it Pass on 29 September 2026.

The MIT License lets you copy and change the skill as long as you keep the copyright notice.

Save it in your Kipt library

A copy is worth keeping if your team always uses the same database, package manager or env file layout and wants the agent to skip the guesswork. In Kipt, open Skills and paste the skill's GitHub folder link into the import box. It reads SKILL.md and the references/ files; for a repo with many skills it shows a list to pick from, so you can take prisma-postgres-setup too. You can also drop the folder or a .zip. Skills in your private GitHub repo install into Claude Code or Codex with one command:

npx skills add https://github.com/<you>/<repo>.git --all -g

Kipt is not affiliated with Prisma.

Similar skills

• Prisma skill: Prisma's prisma-client-api skill for queries, relations and transactions once setup is done.
• Neon Postgres skill: Neon's skill for a serverless Postgres database to point Prisma at.
• Supabase skill: Supabase's official skill, if your Postgres lives there.
• Postgres best practices skill: schema, index and query advice that applies under any ORM.