Sensible database-native change management for framework-free development and dependable deployment.
What makes it different from your typical migration approaches? A few things:
- No opinions: Sqitch is not tied to any framework, ORM, or platform. Rather, it is a standalone change management system with no opinions about your database engine, application framework, or development environment.
- Native scripting: Changes are implemented as scripts native to your selected database engine. Writing a PostgreSQL application? Write SQL scripts for psql. Writing an Oracle-backed app? Write SQL scripts for SQL*Plus.
- Dependency resolution: Database changes may declare dependencies on other changes -- even on changes from other Sqitch projects. This ensures proper order of execution, even when you've committed changes to your VCS out-of-order.
- Deployment integrity: Sqitch manages changes and dependencies via a plan file, employing a Merkle tree pattern similar to Git and Blockchain to ensure deployment integrity. As such, there is no need to number your changes, although you can if you want. Sqitch doesn't much care how you name your changes.
- Iterative Development: Up until you tag and release your project, you can modify your change deployment scripts as often as you like. They're not locked in just because they've been committed to your VCS. This allows you to take an iterative or test-driven approach to developing your database schema.