Select the directory of where to generate the client?

Problem

Consider two directories:

• shared
• project

My schema.prisma resides in the shared directory. There is also a package.json in the shared directory. I am trying to generate a client in the project directory from the schema.prisma file.

If i cd to project and do npx prisma generate --schema=../shared/prisma.schema then the client is built in shared, and not in project like I wanted.

Suggested solution

Add a flag to specify working directory of the generate command. Use the working directory to generate the client, only use the --schema flag to read the file but ignore it when deciding where to put the client.

Alternatives

(None)

Additional context

[birgersp]

Thanks a lot for helping me out here!

It did work with mutple generators blocks, but I am now using a slightly different workaround as it suits our project better, using an env variable that I set before I invoke prisma generate:

generator client {
    provider = "prisma-client-js"
    output = env("PRISMA_OUT")
}

That way, I can do

export PRISMA_OUT=../../myproject/node_modules/@prisma/client
npx prisma generate

to generate the client for my myproject directory.

However I don’t think this is perfect, because the “shared” folder (under which the schema.prisma file resides) will then get its own set of packages in node_modules. And they are never used unless I do another prisma generate.

Personally I find it somewhat un-intuitive that prisma generate is using only the schema file location to determine where the client should be built. Would it not be more “normal” to use the current directory? Other cli tools I’ve ever encountered (e.g npm, protoc, gradle, tar) emit files at the current directory. So in comparison I wanted the client to be built at /home/birger/someweirddir I would either have to do

cd /home/birger/someweirddir
prisma generate --schema /home/birger/wherever-the-schema-is/schema.prisma

or use a flag (if the tool has one).

TL;DR, the workaround is fine but I think others might also find that they want to manually override where prisma generate emits its files.

[antoine-1]

I think we have the same problem? Look here : #13164