ShardView

A self-hosted database browser for any Prisma project. Drop into a project, point it at your schema, get a fast UI to browse, filter, edit and bulk-mutate your data.

cd path/to/your-prisma-project
npx shardview

That's it — your default browser opens at http://localhost:5555.

ShardView reads your project's schema.prisma at runtime, loads your project's own @prisma/client (so it works with whatever Prisma version you use), introspects models via the DMMF and serves a React UI that runs entirely on your machine.

Features

• Tabs — open as many models as you want; tabs are draggable, persist across reloads, support Cmd/Ctrl+click (open in new tab), Cmd/Ctrl+W (close), middle-click and a right-click context menu.
• Sidebar — searchable model list, drag-reorderable pinned section, resizable width, dark mode.
• Inline editing — click any cell to edit. Enums, booleans, dates, numbers, scalar lists and relations all have appropriate editors. FK scalars accept pasted IDs; relation cells expose a picker that opens a paginated table of the related model.
• Multi-row filters — compose any number of conditions, switch between AND/OR group, and follow relation paths up to two hops deep (e.g. post.author.email contains "..."). Export the active filter as a ready-to-paste Prisma snippet.
• Mass edit — select rows, choose which fields to apply, run a single updateMany.
• Cascade delete — for projects whose schema doesn't declare onDelete: Cascade, optionally walk every FK reference and remove dependents recursively.
• Pivot views — models with two or more FKs are detected as join tables and offer two extra views (joined-row and cards) that show the connected entities side-by-side, all inline-editable. Single relation cells whose target is a pivot get a split button that jumps directly to the model on the other side.
• No backend required — the API runs in-process; nothing leaves your machine.

Usage

# inside a project that has prisma set up
npx shardview

# point at a different schema, change port, don't open browser
npx shardview --schema src/db/schema.prisma --port 5556 --no-browser

# load a specific .env file
npx shardview --env .env.staging

CLI options

| Option | Default | Description | | ----------------- | ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | | --schema <path> | ./prisma/schema.prisma | Path to the Prisma schema file. | | --port <num> | 5555 | Port to bind the local server. | | --env <path> | auto-discovered | Custom dotenv file to load before starting. | | --no-browser | (open by default) | Skip launching the default browser on boot. |

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• A project with prisma and @prisma/client installed and a DATABASE_URL reachable from your machine.
• Run prisma generate first if you haven't already.

ShardView resolves @prisma/client from your project's node_modules, or from a custom output path declared in the schema's generator block — so both classic and modern Prisma layouts work.

Install globally (optional)

npm install -g shardview
shardview              # then just type 'shardview' anywhere

npx shardview is recommended for occasional use; install globally if you reach for it daily.

How it works

ShardView ships two halves:

• API — an Express app generated at startup from your project's DMMF. Every endpoint operates on model names dynamically; no schema is hardcoded.
• UI — a single-page React app served as static files from the same process.

There is no shadow database, no migration step, no extra service. Schema introspection happens in-process the moment the CLI starts.

License

BSD 3-Clause © 2026 [email protected]