Drizzle ORM Best Practices (PostgreSQL)

Comprehensive best practices guide for Drizzle ORM with PostgreSQL. Contains guidance across 8 categories, prioritized by impact to help you write correct, performant, and maintainable database code.

When to Apply

Reference these guidelines when:

• Defining table schemas with pgTable
• Writing select, insert, update, or delete queries
• Setting up relations between tables using defineRelations or the legacy relations API
• Configuring drizzle-kit for migrations (generate, push, pull)
• Inferring TypeScript types from your schema
• Choosing between the SQL-like API and the relational query API
• Optimizing query performance with prepared statements or batch operations
• Integrating Drizzle with serverless Postgres providers (Neon, Supabase, etc.)

Rule Categories by Priority

How to Use

Read individual reference files for detailed explanations and code examples:

references/engine-postgres.md          # Postgres-specific types, features, and patterns
references/schema-table-definitions.md
references/query-select-patterns.md
references/relations-defining.md
references/_sections.md                # Full index of all references

Each reference file contains:

• Brief explanation of why it matters
• Incorrect code example with explanation
• Correct code example with explanation
• Links to official Drizzle documentation

References

• https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/overview
• https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/sql-schema-declaration
• https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/relations-v2
• https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/perf-queries
• https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/kit-overview
• https://orm.drizzle.team/llms.txt