NestJS Database Standards
Priority: P0 (FOUNDATIONAL)
Database integration patterns and ORM standards for NestJS applications.
Selection Strategy
See references/persistence_strategy.md for database selection matrix and scaling patterns (Connection Pooling, Sharding).
Patterns
- •Repository Pattern: Isolate database logic.
- •TypeORM: Inject
@InjectRepository(Entity). - •Prisma: Create a comprehensive
PrismaService.
- •TypeORM: Inject
- •Abstraction: Services should call Repositories, not raw SQL queries.
Configuration (TypeORM)
- •Async Loading: Always use
TypeOrmModule.forRootAsyncto load secrets fromConfigService. - •Sync: Set
synchronize: falsein production; use migrations instead.
Migrations
- •Never use
synchronize: truein production. - •Execution: Run via init container or CD step.
- •Zero-Downtime: Use Expand-Contract pattern (Add -> Backfill -> Drop).
- •Seeding: Use factories for dev data; only static dicts for prod.
Best Practices
- •Pagination: Mandatory. Use limit/offset or cursor-based pagination.
- •Indexing: Define indexes in code (decorators/schema) for frequently filtered columns (
where,order by). - •Transactions: Use
QueryRunner(TypeORM) or$transaction(Prisma) for all multi-step mutations to ensure atomicity.