Support for configuring referential actions (on delete, on cascade) in Prisma Schema Language

[janpio]

Problem

Currently Prisma Schema does not support a way to define cascading deletes. But people want to use that functionality.

Suggested solution

Define, implement and document a syntax for cascading deletes.

Alternatives

Set the cascading deletes on the database manually, but that has problems like #2057

Additional Information

• Related, but very outdated specs issues: Cascading deletes specs#328
• Related Migrate feature request: Enable cascading delete behaviour with onDelete: CASCADE #4711
• Related bug: No way to cascade delete when the foreign key is non-nullable #2057
• Some more issues: https://github.com/issues?q=org%3Aprisma+label%3A%22topic%3A+cascade%22

[jechazelle]

Do you know when this feature will be release (milestone) ? Thank you ! :-)

[janpio]

No, we do no have a release date yet.
But we see the 👍 and will take this into consideration.
(We actually just talked about it in a meeting, so it really is top of mind for us.)

[aakashkag]

Hello Prisma team.
Any plan to fix this issue. It's pending from long time. its' very important feature.
Thanks

[macrozone]

i also think that is one of the biggest problem right now in prisma (besides missing migrations)

[Albert-Gao]

https://paljs.com

This is the community solution

[geosigno]

Hello, any update on that feature?

[thebiglabasky]

Hi, this is planned, but will likely be tackled once migrate has reached a stable state, which is our biggest priority right now. Since cascade delete lean a lot on the schema changes, we preferred to go this way.
That's high on our list though, so stay tuned!

[himalayaahuja]

When will migrate reach a stable state ?? :(

[premkumar5012002]

when this feature will be available

[tomhoule]

Note that there currently is an open proposal for this feature: #6996

[tomhoule]

Feedback on the linked issue is very much wanted

[pedrovrima]

In case someone needs a workaround, here is a light package that doesn't require changes your schema:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/prisma-cascade-delete

[PS1TD]

Can't wait for this feature to be released. A lot of complex projects rely heavily on proper cascading deletes including mine. It would be awesome to have this built in instead of having to deal with community workarounds. Keep up the great work Prisma team!

[janpio]

Quick update in that direction: We are actively working on implementation of the proposal spelled out in #6996 - so this is happening. If you can take another look at that proposal and leave your feedback, that would be appreciated.

[Billano]

@janpio any idea on when will the feature be release? (a rough estime works) btw, thanks!!

[janpio]

No ETA, but definitely more weeks than quarters away.

[janpio]

Instructions on how to use this, and a place to give feedback, will be here when it is shipped in a version: #7816

[FlorianWendelborn]

@janpio FWIW, the documentation still points to this issue instead of the feedback issue. Not sure if that’s expected or not so I’m raising it here.

[cyrus-za]

Yep @FlorianWendelborn I came to this issue form docs. I see its in preview now on #7816 but there's no instructions on how to use it.

[pimeys]

It is available in the dev channel, but is not tested yet by others than us the devs. There's also the documentation effort going on: this will be a breaking change and users need to understand the change properly before we can talk about it more.

It is under the previewFeature flag referentialActions in the dev channel, but please keep in mind a possible data loss if just updating without first doing a re-introspection and manually going through all relations, changing the action from cascade to restrict if needed.

So, just wait until next Tuesday's release 2.26.0 for docs and info, or if accepting a risk of data loss, you can try the dev channel...

[janpio]

This has now been released as a preview feature behind a preview feature flag. You can read about it in the release notes for 2.26.0: https://github.com/prisma/prisma/releases/tag/2.26.0 If you have any feedback, please use this issue: #7816