Prisma Next Plugin for Pothos

The Prisma Next plugin integrates Prisma ORM 8 with Pothos to build a strongly typed GraphQL API from your Prisma models. Expose database fields and relations, add computed fields, and support Relay nodes and paginated connections. Your GraphQL types and fields can have different names and shapes from the underlying models.

Each field declares the columns and relations it needs, and the plugin loads what the incoming GraphQL query uses. Relations, counts and connection pages load with their parent, usually in one SQL statement per root field, so you don't need a resolver or database call for every relation. Field types are inferred from your Prisma contract.

[!WARNING] Experimental. This plugin targets Prisma ORM 8.0.0-rc.23 exactly. Its API, and Prisma's, may change in any release.

For Prisma ORM 7, use @pothos/plugin-prisma instead. See Migrating from the Prisma plugin for an existing schema. The two plugins can't be used together. With @pothos/plugin-scope-auth, use version 4.3.0 or newer.

Example

Set up Prisma ORM 8 and your contract, then install the plugin with its Prisma peers:

npm install --save @pothos/core @pothos/plugin-prisma-next @pothos/plugin-relay graphql @prisma/[email protected] @prisma/[email protected]

Install every @prisma/orm-* package, including the one for your database (such as @prisma/orm-postgres), at 8.0.0-rc.23. Two copies of the same package won't work together. The database packages need temporal-polyfill. npm and pnpm install it automatically, but with Yarn you have to add it yourself. Requires Node.js 22.20+ or 24.7+.

import SchemaBuilder from '@pothos/core';
import PrismaNextPlugin from '@pothos/plugin-prisma-next';
import RelayPlugin from '@pothos/plugin-relay';
import { contract, db } from './prisma/db';

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  PrismaContract: typeof contract;
}>({
  plugins: [RelayPlugin, PrismaNextPlugin],
  prisma: { client: db },
});

Define a Post type and its author relation:

builder.prismaObject('Post', {
  fields: (t) => ({
    id: t.exposeID('id'),
    title: t.exposeString('title'),
    author: t.relation('author'),
  }),
});

fullName is a computed field. Its select lists the columns the resolver reads:

builder.prismaObject('User', {
  fields: (t) => ({
    id: t.exposeID('id'),
    email: t.exposeString('email'),
    // Selects its columns only when a query asks for this field.
    fullName: t.string({
      select: ['firstName', 'lastName'],
      resolve: (user) => `${user.firstName} ${user.lastName}`,
    }),
  }),
});

Add a query for the ten latest published posts:

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    recentPosts: t.prismaField({
      type: ['Post'],
      query: { where: { published: 1 }, orderBy: { id: 'desc' }, limit: 10 },
    }),
  }),
});

For { recentPosts { title author { fullName } } }, the posts and their authors load in one SQL statement, including the columns needed to compute each author's name.

t.relatedConnection adds a paginated list of published posts to an author profile:

// Pages through the relation inside the query that loads the user.
builder.prismaObjectField('User', 'postConnection', (t) =>
  t.relatedConnection('posts', {
    query: { where: { published: 1 } },
    totalCount: true,
  }),
);

t.prismaConnection does the same for query fields:

posts: t.prismaConnection({
  type: 'Post',
  totalCount: true,
  args: { newestFirst: t.arg.boolean() },
  // Chooses the direction per request; the plugin reverses it for backward pages.
  query: (args) => ({
    where: { published: 1 },
    orderBy: { id: args.newestFirst ? 'desc' : 'asc' },
  }),
}),

collection sets the starting ORM query, query adds filters and ordering, and select on a custom field lists the data its resolver reads. See Queries and selections for how they combine. The examples use an imported db. For request-scoped clients and transactions, see the Transactions guide.

See the Prisma Next plugin docs and the playground example.

TypeScript and Temporal

If you use Temporal columns, declaration emit may need temporal-spec as a direct dependency. If TypeScript reports missing Temporal globals, add import type {} from 'temporal-spec/global' to a declaration file in your project. This only adds types. You still need Temporal at runtime, natively or from a polyfill. See Setup.

Errors

Clients see Invalid ID. or Invalid cursor. for a malformed ID or cursor, and the Relay plugin's Invalid global ID: … for an ID that isn't a global ID. If the plugin finds a problem in your configuration while running a request, the field fails with Unexpected error.. The original error is on error.cause. Errors from the ORM and from your code are not changed and can include model and column names, so mask them in your GraphQL server.