Setting Up NestJS with Prisma (Without the Headache)

Starting a project with NestJS and Prisma should be easy, right? They’re both popular technologies and a great match. There are even official articles (1)(2) explaining how to integrate them.

Wrong.

For some reason, those articles are outdated. So here I am, writing this guide to save you a serious headache when setting up your project.

Let's Get to It

💡 Here is the final code of this set up project. Use it if you get stuck.

💡 I’ll be using pnpm for this project, but feel free to use any package manager you prefer.

1. Create the Project

You’ll be prompted to choose a package manager. Select pnpm if you want to follow this guide without changes. Otherwise, adapt as needed.

💡 At the time of writing, the latest version of @nestjs/cli appears to have a bug, so I'm using an older version. This may have been resolved by the time you're reading.

pnpm dlx @nestjs/cli@11.0.0 new nestjs-prisma-test 

2. Set Up PostgreSQL with Docker

Create a Docker file:

touch docker-compose.yml 

Add the following content:

# docker-compose.yml version: '3.8' services: postgres: image: postgres:13.5 restart: always environment: - POSTGRES_USER=myuser - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mypassword volumes: - postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data ports: - '5432:5432' volumes: postgres: 

Run the container and keep the terminal open:

docker-compose up 

3. Install Prisma

pnpm add prisma -D 

Initialize Prisma:

pnpm dlx prisma init 

4. Configure Environment Variables

Install dotenv:

pnpm add dotenv 

Update your config files to load environment variables:

// prisma.config.ts import 'dotenv/config'; // rest of the file... 

// src/main.ts import 'dotenv/config'; // rest of the file... 

Update your .env file (remove any comments):

DATABASE_URL="postgres://myuser:mypassword@localhost:5432" 

5. Define Your Models

Edit prisma/schema.prisma:

model User { id Int @id @default(autoincrement()) email String @unique name String createdAt DateTime @default(now()) updatedAt DateTime @updatedAt } 

Run the initial migration:

pnpm dlx prisma migrate dev --name "init" 

6. Install Prisma Client

pnpm add @prisma/client 

💡 You don’t need to run generate now - Prisma does it automatically when installing the client. But for future schema changes, run:

pnpm dlx prisma generate 

7. Create the Prisma Service

Note: We import from /client, not as shown in the official docs.

// src/services/prisma.service.ts import { Injectable, OnModuleInit } from '@nestjs/common'; import { PrismaClient } from 'generated/prisma/client'; @Injectable() export class PrismaService extends PrismaClient implements OnModuleInit { async onModuleInit() { await this.$connect(); } } 

8. Register the Prisma Service

// src/app.module.ts import { Module } from '@nestjs/common'; import { AppController } from './app.controller'; import { PrismaService } from './services/prisma.service'; @Module({ imports: [], controllers: [AppController], providers: [PrismaService], }) export class AppModule {} 

9. Use the Prisma Service

// src/app.controller.ts import { Controller, Get } from '@nestjs/common'; import { PrismaService } from './services/prisma.service'; @Controller() export class AppController { constructor(private readonly prismaService: PrismaService) {} @Get() async getUsers() { return this.prismaService.user.findMany(); } } 

💡 This is a minimal setup and not production-ready. In a real app, you shouldn’t call a service directly from the controller. But this is a Prisma + NestJS set up tutorial - so I don’t care.

10. Run the Server

pnpm run start:dev 

And that’s it! Populate your database and test the endpoint.

If you run into any issues, let me know in the comments. Hope you enjoyed the ride!