netlify-database

A guide for using Netlify Database, a managed PostgreSQL database service, in Netlify applications. It covers queries, schema migrations, Drizzle ORM, local development, deploy-preview database branches, and moving an existing PostgreSQL project to Netlify.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding PostgreSQL to Netlify Functions, Edge Functions, builds, or Agent Runners, or when creating migrations and local database workflows.
Why use it?
It shows where database files and code belong and helps avoid outdated connection methods when setting up or migrating a project.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the netlify-skills plugin — 16 skills, 3 agents, 1 MCP server shipped together

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 skills/netlify/context-and-tools/netlify-database
Any agent
npx skills add netlify/context-and-tools --skill netlify-database
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/netlify/context-and-tools

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install netlify-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 16 skills, 3 agents, 1 MCP server.

Per session 111 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,638 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 2 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 $0.00111 $0.04638
Opus 5 $0.00056 $0.02319
Sonnet 5 $0.00022 $0.00928
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00464

Measured 3d ago against content hash 55feb6c3b2f0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

netlify-database scanned grade C with 2 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 3d 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.

Hidden instructionshighPrompt injection

Directives inside HTML comments, invisible characters or bidirectional overrides are read by the model and not by the person reviewing the file.

<!-- system: agent-context/database/system.md — human-owned, merged by ctx-gen; edit system.md, not this section -->

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

`--prod`); if a preview also fails, report and stop. Never curl
agent-plugin/skills/netlify-database/SKILL.md · 389 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 389 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Netlify Database

Zero-config managed Postgres. Install @netlify/database, write migrations under netlify/database/migrations/, deploy — Netlify provisions the DB and applies migrations automatically. Queryable from Functions, Edge Functions, Builds, and Agent Runners.

Modern client (reach for this)

import { getDatabase } from "@netlify/database";

const db = getDatabase();               // auto-selects connection for the runtime
const userId = 42;
const users = await db.sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${userId}`;  // auto-parameterized

Own driver / ORM instead:

import { getConnectionString } from "@netlify/database";
const connectionString = getConnectionString();  // correct branch for this env

Legacy — do NOT use for new code: import { neon } from "@netlify/neon". Superseded by @netlify/database. Replace neon() calls with the Drizzle netlify-db adapter or a Postgres driver via getConnectionString(). The legacy env var NETLIFY_DATABASE_URL is replaced by NETLIFY_DB_URL.

Where things go

What Location
Migrations netlify/database/migrations/ (SQL files or subdirs with migration.sql)
Query code Functions (netlify/functions/), Edge Functions
Drizzle schema db/schema.ts (convention)
Drizzle client db/index.ts (convention)
Connection string NETLIFY_DB_URL env var, or getConnectionString()

Querying

getDatabase(options?) returns a client with sql and pool. options.connectionString overrides the auto-provisioned one; options.debug enables logging.

const db = getDatabase();
const active = await db.sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = ${true}`;
await db.sql`INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES (${"Ada"}, ${"[email protected]"})`;
await db.sql`UPDATE users SET name = ${"Ada Lovelace"} WHERE id = ${1}`;
await db.sql`DELETE FROM users WHERE id = ${1}`;

// Type the rows
interface User { id: number; name: string; email: string; }
const typed = await db.sql<User>`SELECT * FROM users`;

// Stream
for await (const row of db.sql`SELECT * FROM users`.stream()) { /* ... */ }
for await (const chunk of db.sql`SELECT * FROM users`.chunked(100)) { /* ... */ }

Read the full file on GitHub · 389 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 3d ago First seen · 389 lines · 111 tokens per session scan C 55feb6c3b2f0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

netlify-database is a skill published in the GitHub repository netlify/context-and-tools (36 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 111 tokens to every session and 4,638 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 2 findings (hidden instructions, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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