---
title: 'Deploying database changes with Prisma Migrate'
metaDescription: 'Learn how to deploy database changes with Prisma Migrate.'
sidebar_label: 'Deploying database changes'
---

<TopBlock>

To apply pending migrations to staging, testing, or production environments, run the `migrate deploy` command as part of your CI/CD pipeline:

```terminal
npx prisma migrate deploy
```

:::info

This guide **does not apply for MongoDB**.<br />
Instead of `migrate deploy`, [`db push`](/orm/prisma-migrate/workflows/prototyping-your-schema) is used for [MongoDB](/orm/overview/databases/mongodb).

:::

Exactly when to run `prisma migrate deploy` depends on your platform. For example, a simplified [Heroku](/orm/prisma-client/deployment/traditional/deploy-to-heroku) workflow includes:

1. Ensuring the `./prisma/migration` folder is in source control
2. Running `prisma migrate deploy` during the [release phase](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/release-phase)

Ideally, `migrate deploy` should be part of an automated CI/CD pipeline, and we do not generally recommend running this command locally to deploy changes to a production database (for example, by temporarily changing the `DATABASE_URL` environment variable). It is not generally considered good practice to store the production database URL locally.

Beware that in order to run the `prisma migrate deploy` command, you need access to the `prisma` dependency that is typically added to the `devDependencies`. Some platforms like Vercel, prune development dependencies during the build, thereby preventing you from calling the command. This can be worked around by making the `prisma` a production dependency, by moving it to `dependencies` in your `package.json`.
For more information about the `migrate deploy` command, see:

- [`migrate deploy` reference](/orm/reference/prisma-cli-reference#migrate-deploy)
- [How `migrate deploy` works](/orm/prisma-migrate/workflows/development-and-production#production-and-testing-environments)
- [Production troubleshooting](/orm/prisma-migrate/workflows/patching-and-hotfixing)

</TopBlock>

## Deploying database changes using GitHub Actions

As part of your CI/CD, you can run `prisma migrate deploy` as part of your pipeline to apply pending migrations to your production database.

Here is an example action that will run your migrations against your database:

```yaml file=deploy.yml highlight=17-20 showLineNumbers
name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    paths:
      //highlight-next-line
      - prisma/migrations/**
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install
      - name: Apply all pending migrations to the database
        run: npx prisma migrate deploy
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
```

The highlighted line shows that this action will only run if there is a change in the `prisma/migrations` directory, so `npx prisma migrate deploy` will only run when migrations are updated.

Ensure you have the `DATABASE_URL` variable [set as a secret in your repository](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-for-github-actions/security-guides/using-secrets-in-github-actions), without quotes around the connection string.
