Apply a desired schema

Direct application ships natively as ptah schema apply. The separate ptah-compat drop-in binary exposes the same engine to scripts that expect an Atlas-style executable (ptah-compat schema apply); the plan, the approval prompt, the plan files, and the fingerprint checks behave identically. This page covers the workflow, the saved plan files that separate review from execution, and the hybrid patterns that combine a native drift gate with a direct apply.

Prerequisites:

• A ptah binary on your machine (Install Ptah).
• A desired schema as local files — the examples use a single schema.sql.
• The URL of the database to change.

The examples use a local SQLite database, sqlite://app.db, whose one users table matches schema.sql except for a created_at column added to the file. Substitute your own database URL throughout.

If you do not have that database, build it here. Start in an empty directory:

mkdir ptah-direct-apply
cd ptah-direct-apply

Save this as schema.sql:

CREATE TABLE users (
    id    INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
    email TEXT NOT NULL
);

Apply it, so the database exists and matches the file:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --auto-approve

Expected output on standard output:

Schema apply completed successfully.

Now add the column the rest of this page applies, by replacing schema.sql:

CREATE TABLE users (
    id         INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
    email      TEXT NOT NULL,
    created_at TIMESTAMP
);

Caution

A direct apply leaves no migration file to review and no revision history to replay. Keep direct applies on databases you alone own. For shared and production databases, use versioned migrations, or require a reviewer’s signature on the plan with Plan and approve changes.

Native spellings

The native verbs use Ptah’s own flag spellings — --db-url for the target database, --schema-file (SQL, YAML, HCL, DBML, or OCI sources; repeatable), and --root-dir (Go annotations; repeatable) for the desired schema. These selectors match schema compare and migrations generate:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --dry-run
ptah schema plan  --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --output change.plan.json
ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --plan change.plan.json

On the Atlas-compatible surface, --to additionally accepts a database URL whose live schema becomes the desired schema, or an Atlas-format migration directory replayed on the required --dev-url dev database. When --dev-url is set, the ordered plan is rehearsed on the dev database before the target is touched, and a failed rehearsal refuses the apply. A dev database that is the target, by its URL or by what the two servers answer about the database each session selected, is refused before it is reset. The rehearsal runs entirely inside the dev database, which is handed back empty afterwards — see Atlas schema commands. --lock-timeout bounds the session advisory lock that serializes concurrent applies, --tx-mode selects the transaction mode, --edit opens the planned SQL in $VISUAL/$EDITOR, and --schemas, --include, and --exclude scope both comparison sides.

Locking and --lock-timeout

A session advisory lock stops two applies from planning against one database at the same time, and --lock-timeout bounds how long the apply waits for it. Not every engine gives Ptah such a lock, and an apply against one that does not runs unlocked.

Asking a target that cannot lock for a lock timeout is refused. The refusal names the engines that do lock, so this page carries no second copy of the list:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --lock-timeout 5s --auto-approve

Expected output on standard error:

error: --lock-timeout requested a schema apply lock, and dialect "sqlite" has none: only postgres, yugabytedb, mysql, mariadb, sqlserver take a session advisory lock. Remove --lock-timeout to apply without a lock

Nothing is planned and nothing is applied. A URL that names its dialect is refused before the connection opens, which is why the sqlite://app.db above leaves no file behind. A PostgreSQL-wire URL names no product: postgres:// can reach a server that is not PostgreSQL, and that target is decided once the server has named itself — after the connection, still before the plan. Remove the flag to apply unlocked, which is what such a target does anyway. --dry-run is refused on the same targets: a dry run against an engine that does lock acquires the lock and waits out the timeout, so the flag means the same thing there.

PTAH_LOCK_TIMEOUT fills the same flag, and a value that arrives that way writes a note to standard error and applies unlocked instead of refusing. The variable is shared: ptah migrations up and ptah migrations down read it as their own --lock-timeout, which is the per-migration statement lock timeout, so exporting it for a versioned workflow configures nothing about this apply. Type the flag to get the refusal.

The compatibility surface takes the other side: ptah-compat schema apply accepts the flag, writes a note to standard error, and applies unlocked. That carries no claim about the Atlas CLI — what it does with --lock-timeout on a dialect that cannot lock is not measured here.

Preview the plan

--dry-run prints the planned SQL and stops:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --dry-run

Expected output on standard output:

Planned schema changes:
ALTER TABLE "users" ADD COLUMN "created_at" TIMESTAMP;

Apply with approval

Without --dry-run, the command shows the same plan and asks for confirmation before executing; anything other than YES cancels:

ptah schema apply \
  --db-url "sqlite://app.db" \
  --schema-file schema.sql

Expected output on standard output:

Planned schema changes:
ALTER TABLE "users" ADD COLUMN "created_at" TIMESTAMP;
Apply these schema changes? Type 'YES' to confirm: Schema apply canceled.

--auto-approve skips the prompt for scripted runs:

Planned schema changes:
ALTER TABLE "users" ADD COLUMN "created_at" TIMESTAMP;
Auto-approval enabled; applying schema changes.
Schema apply completed successfully.

--edit opens the planned SQL in $VISUAL/$EDITOR before approval, and the edited SQL is what gets applied. It is refused together with --json, whose standard output belongs to a program rather than to an editor.

Statements that cannot run inside a transaction

The default --tx-mode file, and --tx-mode all, run the whole plan inside one transaction. PostgreSQL refuses some statements there: CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY and DROP INDEX CONCURRENTLY, a statement that uses an enum value an earlier statement added to an existing type, and, on a server with TimescaleDB, a per-chunk index build (WITH (timescaledb.transaction_per_chunk)). The apply checks the plan for these before it rehearses, asks for approval, or sends anything, and refuses it by name. A plan that adds archived to an existing enum and a column defaulting to it stops with exit code 2:

error: the planned changes cannot run inside a transaction: statement 2 of 2: it uses 'archived', a value an earlier statement in the same transaction adds to the pre-existing enum type "probe_status", and a new enum value is not usable until the transaction that added it commits; rerun with --tx-mode none, which commits each statement as it runs
SQL: ALTER TABLE "messages" ADD COLUMN "archive_state" probe_status NOT NULL DEFAULT 'archived'

--tx-mode none runs each statement in its own transaction, where each is allowed. If a later statement then fails, the earlier ones stay applied. A value added to an enum type that the same plan creates is usable at once, so a saved or edited plan that creates the type, adds the value and uses it is not refused. The check covers --plan and --edit as well as a computed plan.

Separate review from execution with a plan file

Approving whatever the tool plans at execution time is the workflow’s weakest point. ptah schema plan computes the same plan and saves it as a local JSON file instead, so the SQL can be reviewed — or code-reviewed — before anything runs:

ptah schema plan --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --output add-created-at.plan.json

Expected output on standard output:

Planned schema changes:
ALTER TABLE "users" ADD COLUMN "created_at" TIMESTAMP;
Plan saved to file://add-created-at.plan.json

The file records the ordered statements with per-statement safety severity and SHA-256 fingerprints of the starting and desired schema states:

{
  "format_version": 1,
  "name": "plan_31a90d35a7bc",
  "dialect": "sqlite",
  "from_fingerprint": "sha256:f768e541305e03ee...",
  "to_fingerprint": "sha256:5fa9d95a6e87c76d...",
  "destructive": false,
  "statements": [
    {
      "sql": "ALTER TABLE \"users\" ADD COLUMN \"created_at\" TIMESTAMP",
      "severity": "safe",
      "reason": "does not remove data or tighten constraints"
    }
  ]
}

ptah schema apply --plan executes exactly the reviewed statements, after verifying that the database still matches the plan’s starting fingerprint:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --plan add-created-at.plan.json --auto-approve

Expected output on standard output:

Planned schema changes:
ALTER TABLE "users" ADD COLUMN "created_at" TIMESTAMP;
Auto-approval enabled; applying schema changes.
Schema apply completed successfully.

A plan file can carry an -- atlas:txmode none or -- atlas:txmode file header in its first statement; ptah-compat schema plan --directive writes one. ptah schema apply --plan executes the plan in the mode the header selects, so a plan holding CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY on PostgreSQL applies without --tx-mode none on the command line. The header and --tx-mode combine under the rule a versioned migration’s directive answers to, and ptah-compat schema apply --plan resolves the same file the same way: the header wins, except under --tx-mode all, where a plan carrying a header is refused before the database is contacted.

--protected-table belongs to the plan, not to the apply of one. ptah schema plan --protected-table refuses to save a plan that would change a fenced row set. ptah schema apply --plan refuses the fence, typed or set as PTAH_PROTECTED_TABLE, before it reads the plan: the file records its statements and not which declared row sets they change, so the apply has nothing to check the fence against. Fencing a table off has the rule.

A plan file can also carry a reviewer’s signature. ptah schema approve signs one with an SSH key and ptah schema apply --plan --require-approval refuses a plan that carries no signature from a list of approvers you commit: Plan and approve changes.

Verification

After an apply, rerunning the dry run confirms nothing is left to change:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --dry-run

Expected output on standard output:

Schema is synced, no changes to be made.

When the desired schema also exists as SQL, YAML, HCL, or DBML files, Go annotations, or an OCI artifact, ptah schema drift gives the same confirmation with No schema drift detected. and exits 0.

Read the result in a script

--json on ptah schema plan and ptah schema apply prints one JSON document on standard output for every run that starts, on success and on failure. The text a person reads goes to standard error instead: the planned statements, the confirmation prompt, and the error: line. The exit codes stay the same. A caller parses standard output and does not match any sentence on either stream. An internal error writes a document too, failed if nothing was sent and unknown once statements were, before the command exits 2 with error: internal error: ....

A command line refused before the run starts prints no document, because no run exists to report. An unknown flag, a flag value that does not parse (--json=maybe, or a PTAH_* variable such as PTAH_DRY_RUN=maybe), flags that cannot be combined (--save with --dry-run, --to with --root-dir) and a positional argument each leave standard output empty, print the error: line on standard error, and exit 2. Nothing ran.

--json has to be typed on the command line: it reads no environment variable. PTAH_JSON is what the versioned commands read, and a value exported for them must not change what standard output means for a schema verb that never asked for a document. --edit is refused under --json and reported as failed, because the editor waits for a person and writes to the stream the document is on.

Against the database this page has converged, a plan reports that nothing is left to change:

ptah schema plan --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --schema-file schema.sql --dry-run --json

Expected output on standard output:

{
  "contract_version": 1,
  "outcome": "no-changes"
}

The plan file saved earlier was computed against the database before it changed, so applying it again is refused, and the document names the reason:

ptah schema apply --db-url "sqlite://app.db" --plan add-created-at.plan.json --auto-approve --json

Expected output includes, on standard output:

  "outcome": "refused",
  "refusal": {
    "code": "stale-plan",
    "changed": "schema",

contract_version is the version of the document, not of Ptah. A consumer that does not know the version it reads should refuse the document. The version rises when a field changes meaning or leaves, and when an outcome gains a value. A new field does not raise it, and neither does a new refusal code, because every refusal means that nothing reached the database.

The plan document

Field	Meaning
outcome	changes, no-changes, refused or failed
plan_digest	SHA-256 of the plan file, as sha256:<hex>: the bytes --save and --output write and --dry-run prints without --json
plan_path	Where --save or --output wrote the file
plan	The plan file itself, with each statement’s sql, severity and reason, the plan-level destructive flag, and the name and fingerprints that identify it
undecided	The declared objects the comparison could not check; see Undecided objects
refusal	Why planning refused; see below
error	The message printed on standard error, for refused and failed

plan, plan_digest and plan_path appear only with changes. no-changes means no statement was planned, and no file is written. The database matches the desired schema unless undecided is present. failed means the plan could not be computed or saved, for a reason that has no refusal code. The document does not depend on when it was written, so two plans against an unchanged database print the same bytes.

plan is the plan’s content, not its bytes. plan_digest covers the bytes of the plan file, and those are not in the document: encoding plan again does not reproduce them, and no encoder is promised to. A caller that needs the bytes, to compare them with plan_digest, to sign them with ptah schema approve or to pass them to ptah schema apply --plan, runs ptah schema plan --output <path> --json and reads the file.

The apply document

Field	Meaning
outcome	How the run ended; see the next table
plan_name, plan_digest	The name the --plan file records, and the SHA-256 of the bytes that were read. The file is read once, so with --require-approval these are also the bytes the signature was checked against
statements	The statements the run listed as its planned changes, in order
undecided	The declared objects the comparison could not check; see Undecided objects. Absent with --plan
refusal	Why the apply refused; see below
error	The message printed on standard error, for refused, failed and unknown

Outcome	Meaning
applied	Every statement ran
no-changes	No statement was planned. The database matches the desired schema unless undecided is present
dry-run	Nothing ran. With --plan, the fingerprint was verified first
canceled	The confirmation prompt was declined
refused	Nothing reached the database, for the reason refusal names
failed	Nothing reached the database, for a reason with no refusal code
unknown	The statements were sent and the run returned an error

unknown is the outcome a caller must not retry from. The statements were sent, and the document cannot say how far they got: a transaction may have rolled them all back, a run without one may have left some, and a lost connection hides even that. Read the database before deciding. A lock session that fails after every statement committed is reported this way too, rather than as applied.

Undecided objects

A comparison can only plan what the read of the database describes. When the account may not read a catalog, the read leaves that kind of object out, so nothing checks whether a declared object of that kind already exists. A MySQL account without access to the role tables is the usual case: a role the schema declares is withheld. No statement is planned for it, because creating it could fail or diverge against a role that is already there.

Each withheld object is one entry in undecided, with its kind and name, and the reason and provenance the read gave. The entries are sorted by kind and then name, and standard error explains each one. The field is independent of the outcome: next to changes or applied it names what the run did not create, and next to no-changes it means the database is not shown to match. A caller that decides “in sync” from the outcome reads undecided too. A plan file does not record the field, so apply --plan does not report it; the schema plan run that computed the file did.

Refusal codes

Code	Raised by	Details
stale-plan	apply --plan	changed is schema or rows; plan_fingerprint and database_fingerprint are the two values compared
protected-table	plan, and apply without --plan	tables lists the fenced tables the plan would change
lock-timeout	apply	Another session held the schema apply lock longer than --lock-timeout
transaction-preflight	apply	A statement cannot run inside the transaction --tx-mode opens
simulation-failed	apply with --dev-url	The plan failed its rehearsal on the dev database and was not sent to the target

A consumer that does not know a code still knows what refused means, and reads error for the rest.

apply --plan never raises protected-table. A fence passed to it is a usage error, reported as failed with no refusal code, because the plan was never checked against the fence. A plan that --require-approval turns away, with no approval or with one that does not verify, is failed too, and the document names no plan, because the gate runs before the file is decoded.

Hybrid patterns

• Gate natively, apply on approval. ptah schema drift --severity destructive in a pipeline blocks data-risking divergence, while routine changes go through ptah schema apply with a saved plan file as the review artifact. Compare and drift covers the gate.
• Iterate directly, ship versioned. Prototype against a disposable local database with ptah schema apply, then run ptah migrations generate against a database at the released state, so the reviewed migration file — not the ad-hoc changes — is what reaches shared environments. Generate migrations covers that step.

Failure modes

• Running a plan file against a database that changed since the plan was computed refuses with exit code 2 instead of executing reviewed SQL against unreviewed state:

  error: pre-planned migration is stale: the target database schema does not
  match the plan's source fingerprint (plan sha256:f768e541..., database
  sha256:05a1209c...); the database changed since the plan was computed, so
  re-run `schema plan` against the current database and review the fresh plan

  Under --json the document reports it as the refusal code stale-plan, with both fingerprints; see Read the result in a script.

• Declining the confirmation prompt cancels with Schema apply canceled. and no changes.

A whole MySQL or MariaDB server

A --db-url that names no MySQL or MariaDB database is the whole server. The plan creates each database the desired schema declares and the server lacks, changes a declared character set or collation, and drops every other user database. When the server holds databases the file does not describe, name the ones it does describe with --schemas, and the others are left alone. Atlas schema commands gives the rules, which both surfaces share.

Limitations

• --schema-file accepts local SQL, YAML, HCL, and DBML files plus OCI schema artifacts. --to accepts a live database or a migration directory; a migration directory requires a disposable --dev-url. Direct apply does not register --schema-cmd or configured external_schema execution.
• Registry atlas:// plan URLs are rejected; saved plan files are local.
• The Atlas-compatible flag surface, --env project-config support, and transaction modes are documented in Atlas schema commands.

Next steps

• Not sure direct changes fit your project: Choose a workflow.
• Ship the change to shared environments as a reviewed file: Generate migrations.
• See the whole Atlas-compatible surface: Atlas compatibility overview.