How to Access Prisma Client from App in Function on DigitalOcean App Platform ?

Hey Jirapat!

This happens because functions in DigitalOcean’s App Platform are isolated from the web services where your main app and Prisma Client reside. This separation means that your function code doesn’t automatically have access to the Prisma Client or schema defined in your web service. Both are indipendant.

What you’ll need to do is to make sure the Prisma Client is bundled directly with your function’s code and that your database connection is correctly configured.

First, make sure the Prisma Client is installed as a dependency in the function’s own package.json. Even though the client might already exist in your main app, functions operate in a separate environment, so they need their own instance.

After adding Prisma to your function’s dependencies, generate the Prisma Client within the function’s directory using npx prisma generate.

You also need to make sure the function has the correct database connection URL. You can do this by setting the DATABASE_URL environment variable for the function, either in the App Spec YAML file or through the DigitalOcean Control Panel. This URL should point to your DigitalOcean Managed Database.

If deploying the Prisma Client with your function becomes too much due to size or complexity, an alternative approach would be to let your main app handle database interactions. You could create a REST API endpoint in your main app for your function to call when it needs to perform database operations. This way, your function can remain lightweight and offload database work to the web service.

Hope this helps!

- Bobby