Creating Models – API Design with Node.js V4

Prisma Syntax

Prisma has an easy to understand syntax for creating models. Its based on the GraphQL language which is based on JSON. So you'll feel right at home. I highly recommend installing the Prisma VS Code plugin. It lints and cleans up your schema file.

Now, onto the models. Let's look at an example model.

model Post {
  // id field that is a number and automatically increments after its used
  id        Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  // timestamps
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
  updatedAt DateTime @updatedAt
  // limit to 255 for indexing UTF-8
  title     String   @db.VarChar(255)
  // optional
  content   String?
  published Boolean  @default(false)
  // relation to another model
  author    User     @relation(fields: [authorId], references: [id])
  authorId  Int
}

Most of this is self explanatory, but check out the comments in the code to learn a bit more context. This isn't a prisma course, so we're going to keep moving along on our API. The rest of the modeling looks very much like this.

User

model User {
  id        String    @id @default(uuid())
  createdAt DateTime  @default(now())
  username  String    @unique
  password  String
  updates     Update[]
}

Above is our User schema

Product

model Product {
  id          String   @id @default(uuid())
  createdAt   DateTime @default(now())
  name        String
  belongsTo   User     @relation(fields: [belongsToId], references: [id])
  belongsToId String
  updates     Update[]
}

Here we have a Product schema. For the change log app, the user might have many products they want to update. So we need a place to store multiple updates. So products belong to a User.

Update

enum UPDATE_STATUS {
  IN_PROGRESS
  LIVE
  DEPRECATED
  ARCHIVED
}

model Update {
  id        String   @id @default(uuid())
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
  updatedAt DateTime

  title   String        @db.VarChar(255)
  body    String
  status  UPDATE_STATUS @default(IN_PROGRESS)
  version String?
  asset   String

  productId    String
  product      Product       @relation(fields: [productId], references: [id])
  updatePoints UpdatePoint[]
}

Products can have updates. So products belong to updates. Updates have many fields, one is called status. Because status is a finite set of options, we created an ENUM to represent our status. Think of an enum value types as "one-of-these". So the value must be one of the values in the ENUM instead of being any other random string.

Update Points

model UpdatePoint {
  id        String   @id @default(uuid())
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
  updatedAt DateTime

  name        String @db.VarChar(255)
  description String

  updateId String
  update   Update @relation(fields: [updateId], references: [id])
}

And finally, update points are the bullets points on an update. They belong to an update, which belongs to a product, which belongs to a user.

As we continue to build, we will most likely make changes to our schema to fit the experience we want to create.

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