Promoting Changes Between Environments in Directus
In Directus, different environments (development, staging, production) are managed as separate project instances. This guide explains how to safely promote changes between these environments.
Schema Changes
Schema changes should originate in your development environment. Use the Schema API to promote these changes to other environments. The API provides endpoints for taking snapshots, comparing schemas, and applying changes.
Content Management
Manage all production content as your single source of truth using:
- Status fields (draft, published, etc.)
- Roles and permissions
- Flows to control publishing process and procedures
Migration Options
When you need to migrate content as part of schema updates, you have several options:
- Data Studio: Use the built-in interface to export/import data in CSV, JSON, or XML formats.
- Import/Export API: Automate migrations using the Import and Export endpoints.
- Advanced Options:
- Custom extensions migrations
- Direct database operations (being careful with system tables)
- Using and modifying the template CLI to extract and load of all schema, system collections and content.
Migrate Your Schema
Directus' schema migration endpoints allow users to retrieve a project's data model and apply changes to another project.
This is useful if you make changes to a data model in a development project and need to apply them to a production project, or to move from a self-hosted project to Directus Cloud.
How-To Guide
You must be an admin user to use these endpoints and follow this guide.
You should have two Directus projects - this guide will refer to them as the "base" and the "target".
Set Up Project
Open a new empty directory in your code editor. In your terminal, navigate to the directory and install dependencies
with npm install @directus/sdk.
Create a new index.js file and set it up:
import { createDirectus, authentication, rest, schemaSnapshot, schemaDiff, schemaApply } from '@directus/sdk';
const BASE_DIRECTUS_URL = 'https://your-base-project.directus.app';
const TARGET_DIRECTUS_URL = 'https://your-target-project.directus.app';
const baseDirectus = createDirectus(BASE_DIRECTUS_URL).with(rest());
const targetDirectus = createDirectus(TARGET_DIRECTUS_URL).with(rest());
await baseDirectus.login('base_email', 'base_password');
await targetDirectus.login('target_email', 'target_password');
async function main() {}
main();
Retrieve Data Model Snapshot From Base Project
At the bottom of index.js, create a getSnapshot() function:
async function getSnapshot() {
return await baseDirectus.request(schemaSnapshot());
}
Note that the data property is destructured from the response and returned. In the main() function, call
getSnapshot():
async function main() {
const snapshot = await getSnapshot(); console.log(snapshot); }
Get your snapshot by running node index.js.
Retrieve Data Model Diff
This section will create a "diff" that describes all differences between your base and target project's data models.
At the bottom of index.js, create a getDiff() function which accepts a snapshot parameter:
async function getDiff(snapshot) {
return await targetDirectus.request(schemaDiff(snapshot));
}
Update your main() function:
async function main() {
const snapshot = await getSnapshot();
console.log(snapshot); const diff = await getDiff(snapshot); console.log(diff); }
Get your diff by running node index.js.
Apply Diff To Target Project
At the bottom of index.js, create a applyDiff() function which accepts a diff parameter:
async function applyDiff(diff) {
return await targetDirectus.request(schemaApply(diff));
}
Update your main() function:
async function main() {
const snapshot = await getSnapshot();
const diff = await getDiff(snapshot);
console.log(diff); await applyDiff(diff); }
Apply the diff by running node index.js.
Handling Different Directus Versions
The diff endpoint does not allow different Directus versions and database vendors by default. This is to avoid any
unintentional diffs from being generated. You can opt in to bypass these checks by adding a second query parameter
called force with the value of true.
The hash property in the diff is based on the target instance's schema and version. It is used to safeguard against changes that may happen after the current diff was generated which can potentially incur unexpected side effects when applying the diffs without this safeguard. In case the schema has been changed in the meantime, the diff must be regenerated.
The complete and final code is available below.
import { createDirectus, authentication, rest, schemaSnapshot, schemaDiff, schemaApply } from '@directus/sdk';
const BASE_DIRECTUS_URL = 'https://your-base-project.directus.app';
const TARGET_DIRECTUS_URL = 'https://your-target-project.directus.app';
const baseDirectus = createDirectus(BASE_DIRECTUS_URL).with(rest());
const targetDirectus = createDirectus(TARGET_DIRECTUS_URL).with(rest());
await baseDirectus.login('base_email', 'base_password');
await targetDirectus.login('target_email', 'target_password');
async function main() {
const snapshot = await getSnapshot();
const diff = await getDiff(snapshot);
await applyDiff(diff);
}
main();
async function getSnapshot() {
return await baseDirectus.request(schemaSnapshot());
}
async function getDiff(snapshot) {
return await targetDirectus.request(schemaDiff(snapshot));
}
async function applyDiff(diff) {
return await targetDirectus.request(schemaApply(diff));
}