netlify-database-local-dev

A guide to using Netlify Database during local development. It runs a local Postgres-compatible database on your computer, separate from hosted or production data, while exposing the same database interface to application code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to run a site with a local database, apply and test migrations, connect framework server routes or functions, and keep local database files out of version control.
Why use it?
It provides a safe local copy for development and explains that migrations must be applied locally by an explicit command.

Cursor rule

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/netlify/context-and-tools/netlify-database-local-dev
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/netlify/context-and-tools
Per session 12 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 657 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00012 $0.00657
Opus 5 $0.00006 $0.00329
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00131
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00066

Measured 2d ago against content hash df304ec9a0a2, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

netlify-database-local-dev scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

cursor/rules/netlify-database-local-dev.mdc · 63 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 63 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Local development

netlify dev runs Netlify Database locally against an embedded Postgres-compatible instance — no remote connection, and no risk of writing to production data. Data persists under .netlify/ in the project directory.

Add .netlify to .gitignore if it isn't already.

Running the app

netlify dev

The database is available to functions, edge functions, framework server routes, and any code that calls getDatabase() or getConnectionString() — same API as production.

For Vite-based projects, install @netlify/vite-plugin so the dev server can connect to the local database without launching netlify dev as a wrapper.

Applying migrations locally

netlify dev does not apply migrations automatically — that's the deploy's job for hosted databases. Locally, you run them yourself:

netlify database migrations apply             # apply all pending
netlify database migrations apply --to <name> # apply up to a specific migration

This targets the local dev DB only. Generating migrations from a Drizzle schema doesn't connect to a database, so plain npx drizzle-kit generate works — no wrapper needed.

Do not run drizzle-kit migrate or drizzle-kit push against NETLIFY_DB_URL in any context — Netlify applies migrations to hosted databases (preview branches and production) automatically on deploy. See references/migrations.md.

Inspecting the local DB

netlify database status                                  # applied/pending state
netlify database connect                                 # interactive REPL
netlify database connect --query "SELECT * FROM items"   # one-shot query
netlify database connect --json                          # connection details as JSON

For tools that need a bare connection string (psql, pgAdmin, DataGrip, TablePlus), pipe connect --json through jq:

psql "$(netlify database connect --json | jq -r .connection_string)"

Resetting local data

Read the full file on GitHub · 63 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 63 lines · 12 tokens per session scan A df304ec9a0a2

Subscribe to this mod's changes

netlify-database-local-dev is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository netlify/context-and-tools (36 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 12 tokens to every session and 657 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.