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. 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.

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, and a statement that uses an enum value an earlier statement added to an existing type. The apply checks the plan for both 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 both are 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.

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.

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

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

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.