branchly

Give every Git branch its own database. Switch branches, and your data follows.

When your branches carry different migrations, a single shared development database is constantly out of step with whatever you have checked out, so your migration tool resets it and your data is gone. branchly gives each branch its own isolated database and keeps them in sync for you: the first time you visit a branch it provisions one (create → migrate → seed), every later visit is instant, and it all happens on git checkout, so most of the time you do nothing at all.

It's local-first and plugin-based, so it isn't tied to a single stack. Out of the box it speaks Git, Prisma, PostgreSQL, and your .env file, with MySQL, SQLite, Drizzle, Knex, and direnv adapters alongside, and room for more.

📚 Full documentation: konlanx.github.io/branchly — guides, adapter references, and the adapter-authoring guide.

Installation

Install one package — use whatever package manager your project already uses:

npm install --save-dev branchly   # npm
pnpm add -D branchly              # pnpm
yarn add -D branchly              # Yarn

Then let branchly set itself up:

npx branchly init     # or: pnpm branchly init · yarn branchly init

That single command discovers your stack, installs the adapter packages it needs, writes a branchly.config.ts, and wires up the Git hook. The necessary adapters and your package manager are detected automatically.

Branchly automatically detects a .env file, Doppler, direnv, CI secrets, or your Prisma datasource. It keeps the host and credentials and just swaps the database name: a maintenance connection for creating and cloning databases, and a fresh app_<branch> database for each branch. Nothing new to set.

That's it. From now on, switching branches just works:

git checkout -b feature/login   # branchly provisions a fresh database
git checkout main               # …and instantly switches back to main's

You can commit the generated branchly.config.ts so your whole team shares the same setup.

Commands

Command	What it does
branchly init	Detect your stack, install adapters, write the config, and install the hook.
branchly sync	Provision the current branch's database now.
branchly status	Show the current branch → database mapping.
branchly run -- <cmd>	Run <cmd> with the per-branch database connection injected into its env.
branchly prune	Drop databases for branches that no longer exist (--force to apply).
branchly gc	Evict cached database snapshots beyond the cache limit.
branchly doctor	Diagnose configuration, plugin, and database-connection problems.

After init, branchly runs automatically on every git checkout, so you'll rarely reach for these by hand. Add --quiet to any command to silence its output (errors always show).

Supported tools

Category	Tool	Status
Package manager	npm	✅ Supported
Package manager	pnpm	✅ Supported
Package manager	Yarn	✅ Supported
Package manager	Bun	✅ Supported
Database	PostgreSQL	✅ Supported
Database	SQLite	✅ Supported
Database	MySQL	✅ Supported
Database	Neon	🔜 Planned
ORM / migrations	Prisma	✅ Supported
ORM / migrations	Drizzle	✅ Supported
ORM / migrations	Knex	✅ Supported

If you would like to expand this list, we would love your contribution!

Building from source

branchly is a pnpm + TypeScript monorepo.

git clone https://github.com/konlanx/branchly.git
cd branchly
pnpm install
pnpm build      # build every package
pnpm test       # run the test suite
pnpm lint       # lint and type-check

Trying a local build in another project

Since the packages aren't published, install them from tarballs. First, pack them from the branchly repo:

mkdir -p /tmp/branchly-packs
for pkg in core vcs-git migrator-prisma datasource-postgres resolver-env-file; do
  (cd "packages/$pkg" && pnpm pack --pack-destination /tmp/branchly-packs)
done

(Add migrator-drizzle, migrator-knex, datasource-mysql, datasource-sqlite, or resolver-direnv to that list if your stack needs them.)

Then, in your project, install the tarballs as dev dependencies. With npm or pnpm a glob works:

npm install --save-dev /tmp/branchly-packs/*.tgz

Yarn doesn't expand globs itself, so let your shell do it:

yarn add -D $(ls /tmp/branchly-packs/*.tgz)

Finally, set it up. Use --no-install, since init can't fetch the unpublished adapters from a registry (you've already installed them above):

npx branchly init --no-install      # or: yarn branchly init --no-install

Re-packing after a change? The version stays the same, so package managers may serve a cached copy — run yarn cache clean (Yarn Berry) or reinstall the tarballs (npm/pnpm) first.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Issues, ideas, and pull requests all help. branchly grows mostly by adapters: support for a new ORM, database, or connection style is a small, self-contained plugin, and a conformance test kit makes new adapters easy to get right. If you'd like to add one or fix something, jump in.

License

MIT