raw postgres / drizzle / prisma → briven

your existing column types map directly. drizzle:

// drizzle
export const notes = pgTable('notes', {
  id: text('id').primaryKey(),
  body: text('body').notNull(),
  authorId: text('author_id').references(() => users.id),
  createdAt: timestamp('created_at').defaultNow().notNull(),
});

// briven
import { schema, table, text, timestamp } from '@briven/cli/schema';
export default schema({
  notes: table({
    columns: {
      id: text().primaryKey(),
      body: text().notNull(),
      authorId: text().references('users', 'id'),
      createdAt: timestamp().notNull().default('now()'),
    },
  }),
});

prisma:

// prisma
model Note {
  id         String   @id @default(cuid())
  body       String
  authorId   String?
  author     User?    @relation(fields: [authorId], references: [id])
  createdAt  DateTime @default(now())
}

// briven
notes: table({
  columns: {
    id: text().primaryKey(),
    body: text().notNull(),
    authorId: text().references('users', 'id'),  // FK relation flattens to a column ref
    createdAt: timestamp().notNull().default('now()'),
  },
}),

conventions to know:

• column casing. briven dsl is camelCase in TS; the generated SQL is snake_case-by-convention. if your existing tables already use snake_case, the migration is zero-diff at the SQL layer.
• indexes live on the table's indexes: [...] array, not chained on the column. compound + unique indexes go here.
• generated columns (drizzle $generated(), postgres GENERATED ALWAYS AS) aren't modelled in the dsl yet — declare the column as text()/integer(), then add the GENERATED clause via a custom migration step.

briven's ctx.db is a focused query builder, not a full ORM. the 90% of select / insert / update / delete patterns translate directly:

// drizzle
const rows = await db.select().from(notes).where(eq(notes.authorId, id)).orderBy(desc(notes.createdAt)).limit(50);

// briven
const rows = await ctx.db('notes')
  .select()
  .where({ authorId: id })
  .orderBy('createdAt', 'desc')
  .limit(50);

for the remaining 10% — joins, CTEs, window functions, full-text — drop to ctx.db.execute(sql, params) with a parameterised SQL string. see /functions for the full Ctx shape.

since briven's data plane is also postgres, the data move is a pg_dump pipe. briven creates a per-project schema (proj_<projectId>); your existing public schema lands inside it.

# 1. open a short-lived dsn into the briven project's schema
briven db shell-token > /tmp/briven-dsn   # writes a single-line dsn

# 2. dump source, restore into briven, scoped to public
pg_dump --schema=public --no-owner --no-privileges \
  --format=custom \
  "$SOURCE_DATABASE_URL" \
  | pg_restore --no-owner --no-privileges \
      --schema=public \
      --dbname="$(cat /tmp/briven-dsn)"

# 3. verify row counts match
psql "$SOURCE_DATABASE_URL"           -tAc 'select count(*) from notes'
psql "$(cat /tmp/briven-dsn)"          -tAc 'select count(*) from public.notes'

the briven dsn is short-lived (15 minutes per issuance) — issue a fresh one if your dump runs longer.

your existing API handlers (express, fastify, hono, next.js api routes) become files under briven/functions/. one file per endpoint:

// before: express + drizzle
app.get('/api/notes', async (req, res) => {
  const rows = await db.select().from(notes).where(eq(notes.authorId, req.user.id));
  res.json({ notes: rows });
});

// after: briven/functions/getNotes.ts
import { query, type Ctx } from '@briven/cli/server';
export default query(async (ctx: Ctx) => {
  if (!ctx.auth) throw new Error('unauthorized');
  return await ctx.db('notes').select().where({ authorId: ctx.auth.userId });
});

the wrapping framework goes away — briven owns the http surface. invoke from the client via briven invoke getNotes, or via the SDK's reactive useQuery.

if you were rolling your own auth on top of postgres (sessions table + cookie + bcrypt), Better Auth gives you the same primitives without the maintenance burden. magic-link + email/password + GitHub OAuth ship out of the box; bring your users.id column over and Better Auth keeps using it.