NOTE

**Note** — Prisma's dynamic subcommand loading system currently requires npm to be installed alongside Bun. This affects certain CLI commands like `prisma init`, `prisma migrate`, etc. Generated code works perfectly with Bun using the new `prisma-client` generator.

Create a new project

Prisma works out of the box with Bun. First, create a directory and initialize it with bun init.

mkdir prisma-app
cd prisma-app
bun init

Install Prisma dependencies

Then install the Prisma CLI (prisma), Prisma Client (@prisma/client), and the LibSQL adapter as dependencies.

bun add -d prisma
bun add @prisma/client @prisma/adapter-libsql

Initialize Prisma with SQLite

We'll use the Prisma CLI with bunx to initialize our schema and migration directory. For simplicity we'll be using an in-memory SQLite database.

bunx --bun prisma init --datasource-provider sqlite

This creates a basic schema. We need to update it to use the new Rust-free client with Bun optimization. Open prisma/schema.prisma and modify the generator block, then add a simple User model.

	generator client {
	provider = "prisma-client"
	output = "./generated"
	engineType = "client"
	runtime = "bun"
	}

	datasource db {
	provider = "sqlite"
	url      = env("DATABASE_URL")
	}

	model User { 
	id    Int     @id @default(autoincrement()) 
	email String  @unique
	name  String?
	} 

Create and run database migration

Then generate and run initial migration.

This will generate a .sql migration file in prisma/migrations, create a new SQLite instance, and execute the migration against the new instance.

	bunx --bun prisma migrate dev --name init
	```
	```txt
Environment variables loaded from .env
Prisma schema loaded from prisma/schema.prisma
Datasource "db": SQLite database "dev.db" at "file:./dev.db"

SQLite database dev.db created at file:./dev.db

Applying migration `20251014141233_init`

The following migration(s) have been created and applied from new schema changes:

prisma/migrations/
	└─ 20251014141233_init/
	└─ migration.sql

Your database is now in sync with your schema.

✔ Generated Prisma Client (6.17.1) to ./generated in 18ms

Generate Prisma Client

As indicated in the output, Prisma re-generates our Prisma client whenever we execute a new migration. The client provides a fully typed API for reading and writing from our database. You can manually re-generate the client with the Prisma CLI.

bunx --bun prisma generate

Initialize Prisma Client with LibSQL

Now we need to create a Prisma client instance. Create a new file prisma/db.ts to initialize the PrismaClient with the LibSQL adapter.

import { PrismaClient } from "./generated/client";
import { PrismaLibSQL } from "@prisma/adapter-libsql";

const adapter = new PrismaLibSQL({ url: process.env.DATABASE_URL || "" });
export const prisma = new PrismaClient({ adapter });

Create a test script

Let's write a simple script to create a new user, then count the number of users in the database.

import { prisma } from "./prisma/db";

// create a new user
await prisma.user.create({
	data: {
	name: "John Dough",
	email: `john-${Math.random()}@example.com`,
	},
});

// count the number of users
const count = await prisma.user.count();
console.log(`There are ${count} users in the database.`);

Run and test the application

Let's run this script with bun run. Each time we run it, a new user is created.

bun run index.ts

Created john-0.12802932895402364@example.com
There are 1 users in the database.

bun run index.ts

Created john-0.8671308799782803@example.com
There are 2 users in the database.

bun run index.ts

Created john-0.4465968383115295@example.com
There are 3 users in the database.

---

That's it! Now that you've set up Prisma using Bun, we recommend referring to the official Prisma docs as you continue to develop your application.