Using Drizzle with Durable Objects

Summary

Drizzle ORM added support for Cloudflare's Durable Objects with SQLite, enabling developers to use a proper ORM and migration system instead of custom database management code. Griffin integrated this into his SprintJam application, replacing unreliable custom code that made updates difficult.

Key Concepts

• Durable Objects: Cloudflare's solution for stateful edge computing, now with SQLite support
• Repository Pattern: A central class initializes Drizzle with DurableObjectStorage and handles all database operations
• Migration Safety: The blockConcurrencyWhile() wrapper ensures migrations complete before handling any requests

Setup Flow

flowchart LR
    A[Install drizzle-orm & drizzle-kit] --> B[Configure drizzle.config.ts]
    B --> C[Update wrangler.json]
    C --> D[Create repository class]
    D --> E[Run drizzle-kit generate]

Code Snippets

Drizzle Configuration

The config specifies SQLite dialect with the Durable Objects driver.

// drizzle.config.ts
export default {
  dialect: 'sqlite',
  driver: 'durable-sqlite',
  // ... schema and output paths
}

Repository Initialization

Wrap migration in blockConcurrencyWhile() to prevent concurrent requests during schema updates.

class Repository {
  private db: DrizzleDatabase

  constructor(storage: DurableObjectStorage) {
    this.db = drizzle(storage)

    storage.blockConcurrencyWhile(async () => {
      await migrate(this.db, migrations)
    })
  }
}

Gotchas

• Concurrency: Always wrap migrations with blockConcurrencyWhile() to prevent race conditions
• Deployment: Include drizzle-kit generate in your deployment pipeline
• SQL Imports: Use the ?raw suffix for SQL file imports if you encounter parsing errors

Connections

• livestore - Also uses SQLite as a reactive data layer, though for local-first apps rather than edge computing
• what-is-local-first-web-development - Discusses SQLite via WebAssembly as a storage option for client-side data