Hi @rainnfx 👋

Thank you for raising this question.

It's not a stupid question at all! Managing schema changes without data loss is a common concern. The prisma db push command is designed to quickly synchronize your Prisma schema with your database schema. However, it does not generate migration files and is best suited for prototyping in a development environment. When prisma db push detects changes that could result in data loss (e.g., adding a required field without a default value), it will prompt you to reset the database.

You should use prisma migrate commands instead of prisma db push. This command helps you create and apply migrations during development. This command helps you create and apply migrations during development.

• Expand and Contract Pattern:

This pattern allows you to evolve your schema without downtime and data loss. It involves making non-destructive changes first (e.g., adding a nullable field) and then gradually evolving the schema.
You can read more about this pattern in the documentation.

Go into your schema and make the change:

NormalizedName  String            @unique @db.VarChar(64)
NormalizedName  String?            @unique @db.VarChar(64)

Then create a draft migration:

$ npx prisma migrate dev --name migration-name --create-only

Then edit the migration in SQL (this allow null values ie optional)

ALTER TABLE myTable ALTER COLUMN myColumn {DataType} NULL;

OR Postgres

ALTER TABLE myTable ALTER COLUMN myColumn DROP NOT NULL;

etc.

Then apply the modified SQL:

$ npx prisma migrate dev

I hope this works for you :)