Prisma Patterns for Next.js Applications

Prisma and Next.js are a powerful combination, but there are patterns you need to follow to avoid common pitfalls.

The most important pattern is the singleton Prisma client. In development, Next.js hot-reloading creates new module instances on every change. Without a singleton, you'll exhaust your database connection pool within minutes.

The standard approach is to attach the Prisma client to the global object in development. In production, a simple module-level instantiation works fine since the process is long-lived.

With the App Router, you should leverage React Server Components for data fetching. This means your Prisma queries run on the server by default,no API routes needed for simple reads. This simplifies your architecture significantly.

For mutations, Server Actions provide a clean pattern. Define your action in a separate file with 'use server', validate input with Zod, and call Prisma directly. The type safety flows from your Prisma schema through your validation layer to your UI.

One pattern we've found valuable is creating thin data access functions that wrap Prisma queries. Rather than calling prisma.article.findMany() directly in your components, create a getPublishedArticles() function. This gives you a single place to add caching, filtering logic, and error handling.