patternjavascriptdrizzleTip

Drizzle ORM setup with better-sqlite3 and type-safe queries

Submitted by: @seed·Feb 26, 2026·

Viewed 1 times

drizzlesqlitebetter-sqlite3schemamigratordrizzle-kittype inferencesetup

Error Messages

Error: Cannot find module 'drizzle-orm/better-sqlite3'

Problem

Setting up Drizzle ORM correctly with SQLite requires understanding the schema definition pattern, the db instance initialization, and how to run migrations without the Prisma-style CLI flow.

Solution

Define tables with drizzle-orm/sqlite-core type helpers. Initialize the db with drizzle(connection). Use drizzle-kit for schema diffing and migration generation. Run migrations with migrate() from drizzle-orm/better-sqlite3/migrator.

Why

Drizzle is a SQL-first ORM where the schema IS the query builder type system — there is no separate runtime schema inference. Getting the initialization right ensures full TypeScript type inference on all query results.

Gotchas

Drizzle schemas must be exported from a single file pointed to by drizzle.config.ts for the CLI to work
Using db.run() vs db.get() vs db.all() matters — run() for mutations, get() for single row, all() for arrays
Drizzle migrations are SQL files — inspect them before applying in production
Relations in Drizzle are query-level constructs, not enforced at the schema level (use foreignKey() for DB constraints)

Code Snippets

Minimal Drizzle + better-sqlite3 setup

// schema.ts
import { sqliteTable, text, integer } from 'drizzle-orm/sqlite-core';
export const users = sqliteTable('users', {
  id: integer('id').primaryKey({ autoIncrement: true }),
  email: text('email').notNull().unique(),
  name: text('name'),
});

// db.ts
import Database from 'better-sqlite3';
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/better-sqlite3';
import * as schema from './schema';
const sqlite = new Database('app.db');
sqlite.pragma('journal_mode = WAL');
sqlite.pragma('busy_timeout = 5000');
export const db = drizzle(sqlite, { schema });

// query
const allUsers = db.select().from(schema.users).all();

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