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Get Started with Drizzle and Expo

This guide assumes familiarity with:
  • Expo SQLite - A library that provides access to a database that can be queried through a SQLite API - read here

Step 1 - Setup a project from Expo Template

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun 
npx create expo-app --template blank-typescript

You can read more about this template here.

Basic file structure

After installing the template and adding the db folder, you’ll find the following content: In the db/schema.ts file with drizzle table definitions. The drizzle folder contains SQL migration files and snapshots

📦 <project root>
 ├ 📂 assets
 ├ 📂 drizzle
 ├ 📂 db
 │  └ 📜 schema.ts
 ├ 📜 .gitignore
 ├ 📜 .npmrc
 ├ 📜 app.json
 ├ 📜 App.tsx
 ├ 📜 babel.config.ts
 ├ 📜 drizzle.config.ts
 ├ 📜 package.json
 └ 📜 tsconfig.json

Step 2 - Install expo-sqlite package

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun 
npx expo install expo-sqlite

Step 3 - Install required packages

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun 
npm i drizzle-orm
npm i -D drizzle-kit

Step 4 - Connect Drizzle ORM to the database

Create a App.tsx file in the root directory and initialize the connection:

import * as SQLite from 'expo-sqlite';
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/expo-sqlite';

const expo = SQLite.openDatabaseSync('db.db');

const db = drizzle(expo);

Step 4 - Create a table

Create a schema.ts file in the db directory and declare your table:

src/db/schema.ts 
import { int, sqliteTable, text } from "drizzle-orm/sqlite-core";

export const usersTable = sqliteTable("users_table", {
  id: int().primaryKey({ autoIncrement: true }),
  name: text().notNull(),
  age: int().notNull(),
  email: text().notNull().unique(),
});

Step 5 - Setup Drizzle config file

Drizzle config - a configuration file that is used by Drizzle Kit and contains all the information about your database connection, migration folder and schema files.

Create a drizzle.config.ts file in the root of your project and add the following content:

import { defineConfig } from 'drizzle-kit';

export default defineConfig({
  dialect: 'sqlite',
  driver: 'expo',
  schema: './db/schema.ts',
  out: './drizzle',
});

Step 6 - Setup metro config

Create a file metro.config.js in root folder and add this code inside:

metro.config.js 
const { getDefaultConfig } = require('expo/metro-config');
/** @type {import('expo/metro-config').MetroConfig} */
const config = getDefaultConfig(__dirname);
config.resolver.sourceExts.push('sql');
module.exports = config;

Step 7 - Update babel config

metro.config.js 
module.exports = function(api) {
  api.cache(true);
  return {
    presets: ['babel-preset-expo'],
    plugins: [["inline-import", { "extensions": [".sql"] }]] // <-- add this
  };
};

Step 8 - Applying changes to the database

With Expo, you would need to generate migrations using the drizzle-kit generate command and then apply them at runtime using the drizzle-orm migrate() function

Generate migrations:

npx drizzle-kit generate

Step 9 - Apply migrations and query your db:

Let’s App.tsx file with migrations and queries to create, read, update, and delete users

import { Text, View } from 'react-native';
import * as SQLite from 'expo-sqlite';
import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/expo-sqlite';
import { usersTable } from './db/schema';
import { useMigrations } from 'drizzle-orm/expo-sqlite/migrator';
import migrations from './drizzle/migrations';

const expo = SQLite.openDatabaseSync('db.db');

const db = drizzle(expo);

export default function App() {
  const { success, error } = useMigrations(db, migrations);
  const [items, setItems] = useState<typeof usersTable.$inferSelect[] | null>(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    if (!success) return;

    (async () => {
      await db.delete(usersTable);

      await db.insert(usersTable).values([
        {
            name: 'John',
            age: 30,
            email: '[email protected]',
        },
      ]);

      const users = await db.select().from(usersTable);
      setItems(users);
    })();
  }, [success]);

  if (error) {
    return (
      <View>
        <Text>Migration error: {error.message}</Text>
      </View>
    );
  }

  if (!success) {
    return (
      <View>
        <Text>Migration is in progress...</Text>
      </View>
    );
  }

  if (items === null || items.length === 0) {
    return (
      <View>
        <Text>Empty</Text>
      </View>
    );
  }

  return (
    <View
      style={{
        display: 'flex',
        flexDirection: 'column',
        alignItems: 'center',
        width: '100%',
        height: '100%',
        justifyContent: 'center',
      }}
    >
      {items.map((item) => (
        <Text key={item.id}>{item.email}</Text>
      ))}
    </View>
  );
}

Step 10 - Prebuild and run expo app

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun
npx expo run:ios