Installation & Boot

Requirements

Dependency	Minimum version
Node.js	18+
TypeScript	5.0+
drizzle-orm	0.30+
Drizzle driver	any (pg, mysql2, better-sqlite3, …)

Install

npm install active-drizzle

boot(db, schema)

Call boot once before any model code runs — typically right after creating your Drizzle client:

import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/node-postgres'
import { boot }   from 'active-drizzle'
import * as schema from './schema.js'

const db = drizzle(process.env.DATABASE_URL!, { schema })

boot(db, schema)

TIP

Pass the full schema object (the * as schema import). ActiveDrizzle uses it for db.query.<table> relational lookups, association resolution, and eager loading.

WARNING

boot must be called before the first Model.find() / Model.create() / etc. call. In tests, call it in a beforeAll or beforeEach block.

TypeScript config

Add experimentalDecorators to your tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": false,
    "target": "ES2022",
    "module": "ESNext",
    "moduleResolution": "bundler"
  }
}

With Next.js / Express

Create a singleton module that calls boot once:

// lib/db.ts
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/node-postgres'
import { Pool }    from 'pg'
import { boot }    from 'active-drizzle'
import * as schema from '@/db/schema.js'

const pool = new Pool({ connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL })
export const db = drizzle({ client: pool, schema })

boot(db, schema)

Import this module at your app entry point and all models will have access to the database.