Skip to content
NSchema

CLI

All versionsAll versions forwardView on GitHub

Version 4.0.0

Version 4.0.0 changes the provider and backend model to function as plugins resolved through the NuGet package manager.

Added

  • Third-party providers and backends. A PROVIDER / BACKEND block can name any plugin package with a source attribute.
  • nschema init now restores plugins. init now pre-fetches the provider and backend plugins pinned in your config. Operations restore implicitly on first use; init just does it up front so the first real command is fast.
  • --no-init flag. Skips the implicit plugin restore and requires the plugins to be cached already.
  • lock command group. nschema lock status / lock acquire / lock release inspect, manually hold, and release the state lock. lock acquire holds a lock that outlives the command (for out-of-band checks before a migration), with an optional --ttl (e.g. 30m) and --reason, lock status surfaces any information about the currently held lock. lock release requires the lock id by default (refusing if it no longer matches the held lock), with --force to release whatever lock is held without naming it.
  • --no-lock flag on apply, refresh, and destroy. Runs without taking the state lock.
  • nschema state show <file> renders a state file on disk directly, without a configured backend.
  • nschema db show renders the live database schema, read directly from the database via the provider — the online counterpart to state show.
  • plugin command group. nschema plugin list shows the provider and backend plugins your project pins and whether each is restored; plugin show
  • --format option (text | json | markdown), selecting the output format for any command. --json is now shorthand for --format json.
  • Markdown output. --format markdown renders the plan, SQL, and schema as Markdown for a PR comment or a CI job summary.

Changed

  • Providers and backends are now plugins. They ship as separate NuGet packages instead of being bundled with the tool; nschema restores the one pinned in your config on first use (it shells out to the .NET SDK to do so). The local-file state backend remains built in.
  • Scaffolding moved from init to nschema scaffold. Creating a starter project is now nschema scaffold (init became the restore command above). Its PROVIDER / BACKEND config blocks and the sample schema are rendered by the plugins themselves.
  • PROVIDER / BACKEND blocks now require a pinned version (the plugin package version); the built-in file backend is the exception. A first-party label (postgres, sqlite, sqlserver, s3) still resolves to its package automatically.
  • A PROVIDER block is now required to select a provider. NSCHEMA_POSTGRES_CONNECTION_STRING and the other connection-string variables no longer name the provider on their own — they still override the connection string set in the block.
  • doctor reports plugin problems as diagnostics. A provider or backend that fails to restore or configure is now reported by doctor as a health-check finding (every such problem at once) instead of aborting on the first.
  • Lock commands grouped under lock. lock-status → nschema lock status; force-unlock → nschema lock release, whose prompt is now skipped with --auto-approve/-y (consistent with apply/destroy) instead of --force. The lock-id safety check is unchanged.
  • show split by what it shows. The recorded state is now nschema state show (offline; the state noun group will grow pull/push/move), and a saved plan is nschema plan show <file>. The top-level show command is gone.
  • completion install / completion uninstall subcommands replace the --install-autocomplete / --uninstall-autocomplete flags. nschema completion <shell> still prints the script.
  • Built on NSchema.Core 4.0.0 and the 4.0 provider/backend packages.

Fixed

  • Running nschema --help in a busy directory like root would cause a performance slowdown due to the --environment arg autocomplete recursively scanning all the files in the directory. This has been fixed by removing autocomplete.
  • Torn reads of the local state file. The built-in file state store now writes to a temporary sibling file and atomically renames it into place, so a command reading the recorded state while another run writes it.

Removed

  • The NSCHEMA config block. destructive_action moved to the --destructive-actions flag / the NSCHEMA_DESTRUCTIVE_ACTION_POLICY environment variable; dialect and transaction_mode (never wired in) are gone. An NSCHEMA block is now rejected as an unknown configuration block.
  • The top-level show, lock-status, and force-unlock commands, replaced by state show / plan show and the lock group above. The show --online live-schema view is now nschema db show (a db noun group) rather than a mode flag.