How to Upgrade to Prisma v7?

Prisma v7 brings real improvements — better performance, cleaner architecture with adapters, and more predictable behavior in ESM environments. The challenge isn’t whether to upgrade, it’s upgrading without unnecessary chaos.

This guide focuses on exactly that: what you need to change to move from Prisma v6 to v7 safely, why those changes exist, and what to avoid. No fluff, no magic commands that break half your project.

The main areas that change during the upgrade:

• Dependencies and build tooling
• TypeScript config and module format
• Prisma client generation path
• Database connection using adapters
• Import paths inside the project

If you understand these pieces, upgrading becomes straightforward — not a guessing game.

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What Went Wrong the First Time —

During the initial migration attempt, the upgrade followed Prisma’s AI‑generated migration instructions. While technically valid, those steps enforced a full transition to native ESM imports with file extensions across the entire codebase.

This led to the following issues:

• Every local import required a .js extension after transpilation, forcing updates across all project files.
• TypeScript tooling such as ts-node, tsx, and nodemon became inconsistent because the runtime expected compiled .js file paths while the source files remained .ts.
• The Prisma client import also needed to be ESM‑specific with .js file extensions, which increased friction and instability.

Although the instructions technically aligned with an ESM‑only environment, this type of migration was unnecessarily disruptive for an existing project and introduced breaking points unrelated to Prisma itself.

Correct Direction

The stable and efficient upgrade was achieved by using Prisma v7 with the new adapter pattern rather than converting the project to full ESM imports. Key improvements included:

• Keeping TypeScript import paths extension‑less
• Generating the Prisma client within /src/generated instead of node_modules
• Using tsup to output clean ESM build files instead of restructuring source imports manually
• Switching to PrismaPg with a PostgreSQL pool rather than changing file resolution strategies

This approach preserved the existing project architecture while meeting Prisma v7’s new adapter architecture requirements.

---

Step 1: Install Required Dependencies

npm install prisma@latest @prisma/client@latest @prisma/adapter-pg pg tsup
npm i -D tsx

@prisma/adapter-pg + pg is now the default combo for PostgreSQL.

---

Step 2: Update tsconfig.json

Old:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es2016",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "rootDir": "./src",
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,
    "strict": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true
  }
}

New:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2023",
    "module": "ESNext",
    "moduleResolution": "Node",
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "strict": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*", "prisma.config.ts"]
}

✔ Enables ESM + modern TypeScript support that Prisma v7 expects.

---

Step 3: Add tsup.config.ts (build using tsup)

import { defineConfig } from "tsup";

export default defineConfig({
  entry: ["src/index.ts"],
  format: ["esm"],
  outDir: "dist",
  target: "es2022",
  clean: true,
  sourcemap: false,
  dts: false,
});

Prisma v7 projects mostly use tsup instead of compiling via tsc.

---

Step 4: Update Prisma Client Singleton

Old (@prisma/client)

import { PrismaClient } from "@prisma/client";

const globalForPrisma = globalThis as unknown as {
  prisma: PrismaClient | undefined;
};

export const prisma =
  globalForPrisma.prisma ??
  new PrismaClient({
    log: process.env.NODE_ENV === "development" ? ["error", "warn"] : ["error"],
  });

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== "production") {
  globalForPrisma.prisma = prisma;
}

const cleanup = async () => {
  await prisma.$disconnect();
};

process.on("beforeExit", cleanup);
process.on("exit", cleanup);

---

New (Adapter-based)

import "dotenv/config";
import { PrismaClient } from "../generated/client.js";
import { PrismaPg } from "@prisma/adapter-pg";
import pg from "pg";

const connectionString = process.env.DATABASE_URL;
const pool = new pg.Pool({ connectionString });
const adapter = new PrismaPg(pool);

const globalForPrisma = globalThis as unknown as {
  prisma: PrismaClient | undefined;
};

export const prisma =
  globalForPrisma.prisma ??
  new PrismaClient({
    adapter,
    log: process.env.NODE_ENV === "development" ? ["error", "warn"] : ["error"],
  });

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== "production") {
  globalForPrisma.prisma = prisma;
}

const cleanup = async () => {
  await prisma.$disconnect();
};

process.on("beforeExit", cleanup);
process.on("exit", cleanup);

Also update all imports across the project:

from "@prisma/client" → from "generated/client"

---

Step 5: Update schema.prisma

Old:

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
  seed     = "ts-node prisma/seed.ts"
}

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
  url      = env("DATABASE_URL")
}

New:

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client"
  output   = "../src/generated"
}

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
}

✔ Prisma v7 reads database connection from prisma.config.ts now.

---

Step 6: Add prisma.config.ts

import "dotenv/config";
import { defineConfig, env } from "prisma/config";

export default defineConfig({
  schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
  migrations: {
    path: "prisma/migrations",
  },
  datasource: {
    url: env("DATABASE_URL"),
  },
});

This file replaces DATABASE_URL inside the schema.

---

Step 7: Update package.json scripts

Old:

"scripts": {
  "build": "tsc -b",
  "start": "node dist/index.js",
  "render:build": "npm i && npx prisma generate --no-engine && npm run build",
  "render:start": "npx prisma migrate deploy && npm run start",
  "db:seed": "ts-node prisma/seed.ts",
  "dev": "nodemon src/index.ts"
}

New:

"scripts": {
  "build": "tsup",
  "start": "node dist/index.mjs",
  "dev": "tsx --watch src/index.ts",
  "render:build": "npm i && npx prisma generate --no-engine && npm run build",
  "render:start": "npx prisma migrate deploy && npm run start"
}

---

Migration Done — Now Regenerate Client

npx prisma generate

Then run your app:

npm run dev

If everything boots without adapter/esm errors — congrats, you're officially on Prisma v7 🎉

---

Final Takeaway

Prisma v7 is faster, more modular, and built for modern ESM + adapters — but the transition requires tweaks to config, imports, build setup, and the singleton.

Comments

[Tanmay Gupta]

Thanks this was much needed 🙌