Sqitch
Sensible database change management
**sqitch** is a Sensible database change management The project is written primarily in Perl, distributed under the MIT License license, first published in 2012. It has gained significant community traction with 3,132 stars and 216 forks on GitHub. Key topics include: clickhouse, cockroachdb, database, exasol, firebird.
App/Sqitch version v1.6.2-dev
| Release | Coverage | Database | ||
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Sqitch is a database change management application. It currently supports:
- PostgreSQL 8.4+
- YugabyteDB 2.6+
- CockroachDB 21+
- SQLite 3.8.6+
- MySQL 5.1+
- MariaDB 10.0+
- Oracle 10g+,
- Firebird 2.0+
- Vertica 7.2+
- Exasol 6.0+
- Snowflake
- ClickHouse 25.8+
What makes it different from your typical migration approaches? A few things:
-
No opinions
Sqitch is not tied to any framework, ORM, or platform. Rather, it is a
standalone change management system with no opinions about your database
engine, application framework, or development environment. -
Native scripting
Changes are implemented as scripts native to your selected database engine.
Writing a PostgreSQL application? Write SQL scripts forpsql. Writing
an Oracle-backed app? Write SQL scripts for SQL*Plus. -
Dependency resolution
Database changes may declare dependencies on other changes -- even on
changes from other Sqitch projects. This ensures proper order of
execution, even when you've committed changes to your VCS out-of-order. -
Deployment integrity
Sqitch manages changes and dependencies via a plan file, employing a
Merkle tree pattern similar to Git and Blockchain to ensure
deployment integrity. As such, there is no need to number your changes,
although you can if you want. Sqitch doesn't much care how you name your
changes. -
Iterative Development
Up until you tag and release your project, you can modify your change
deployment scripts as often as you like. They're not locked in just because
they've been committed to your VCS. This allows you to take an iterative or
test-driven approach to developing your database schema.
Want to learn more? The best place to start is in the tutorials:
- Introduction to Sqitch on PostgreSQL, YugabyteDB, and CockroachDB
- Introduction to Sqitch on SQLite
- Introduction to Sqitch on Oracle
- Introduction to Sqitch on MySQL
- Introduction to Sqitch on Firebird
- Introduction to Sqitch on Vertica
- Introduction to Sqitch on Exasol
- Introduction to Sqitch on Snowflake
There have also been a number of presentations on Sqitch:
-
PDX.pm Presentation: Slides from "Sane Database Management with Sqitch",
presented to the Portland Perl Mongers in January, 2013. -
PDXPUG Presentation: Movie of "Sane Database Management with Sqitch",
presented to the Portland PostgreSQL Users Group in September, 2012. -
Agile Database Development: Slides from a three-hour tutorial session on
using Git, test-driven development with pgTAP, and change management with
Sqitch, updated in January, 2014.
Installation
To install Sqitch from a distribution download, type the following:
perl Build.PL
./Build installdeps
./Build
./Build test
./Build install
To install Sqitch and all of its dependencies into a single directory named
sqitch_bundle, install the Menlo CPAN client and build the bundle:
cpanm Menlo::CLI::Compat
./Build bundle --install_base sqitch_bundle
After which, Sqitch can be run from ./sqitch_bundle/bin/sqitch. By default,
no modules that are included in the core Perl distribution are included. To
require that dual-life modules also be bundled, pass --dual_life 1:
./Build bundle --install_base sqitch_bundle --dual_life 1
To include support for a feature in the bundle, pass the --with option
naming the feature:
./Build bundle --install_base sqitch_bundle --with postgres --with sqlite
The feature names generally correspond to the supported engines. The currently
supported features are:
--with postgres: Support for managing Postgres, Yugabyte, and Cockroach databases--with sqlite: Support for managing SQLite databases--with mysql: Support for managing MySQL databases--with firebird: Support for managing Firebird databases--with oracle: Support for managing Oracle databases--with vertica: Support for managing Vertica databases--with exasol: Support for managing Exasol databases--with snowflake: Support for managing Snowflake databases--with odbc: Include the ODBC driver
To build from a Git clone, first install Dist::Zilla, then use it to install
Sqitch and all dependencies:
cpanm Dist::Zilla
dzil authordeps --missing | cpanm
dzil listdeps --missing | cpanm
dzil install
To run Sqitch directly from the Git clone, execute t/sqitch.
To install Sqitch on a specific platform, including Debian- and RedHat-derived
Linux distributions and Windows, see the Installation documentation.
License
Copyright (c) 2012-2026 David E. Wheeler, 2012-2021 iovation Inc.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.
Contributors
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