Branch merge workflow for sequential migrations - lessons learned

[EliasBorrajo]

Team workflow with sequential migrations - how we handle merges

Sharing a workflow that works well for us in case it helps others.

The core idea: each branch owns its own drizzle/ state, and the parent branch is always the source of truth. You don't avoid merging drizzle/ — you just follow a strict protocol when you do.

The problem

With sequential numbering, two developers working in parallel can both generate a 0007_snapshot.json with different content. The .sql filenames are unique, but the snapshot is what Drizzle uses to know the current schema state — two conflicting snapshots at the same number means Drizzle can no longer reliably generate the next migration.

The solution: always regenerate on top of the parent

When finishing a feature branch, don't push your drizzle/ as-is. Instead:

Step 1 — Pull the parent branch and resolve schema conflicts

git pull origin dev
# resolve conflicts in schema.ts

Step 2 — Discard your drizzle/, restore the parent's

git checkout origin/dev -- drizzle/

The parent's drizzle/ is the baseline. Your locally generated migrations are thrown away.

Step 3 — Regenerate cleanly on top of the parent

pnpm db:generate
pnpm db:migrate  # verify locally
git add drizzle/ 

This produces a single clean migration on top of the parent's history — no snapshot conflicts, no stale state.

Why not timestamps?

Timestamps solve the numbering collision problem, but they're not Drizzle's default. We preferred keeping the standard and solving the problem at the workflow level instead.

Beyond that, timestamps don't fully eliminate the manual work. You still need to merge _journal.json by hand and make sure the entry order and indices are consistent — which can get messy when several branches are in flight at the same time.

Why not push everywhere?

push is great for solo dev, but it can silently drop columns on rename — not acceptable in prod. migrate keeps full control over what runs on the database.

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Happy to answer questions, if anything is unclear.
I hope it helps some people out there who had the same issue !

Would love to know if others have a different approach