the datasource.url property is required in your prisma config file when using prisma migrate deploy

TL;DR: Add a datasource url entry to prisma.config.ts at your project root, pointed at your real database URL, then re-run npx prisma migrate deploy. If you deploy with Docker, copy prisma.config.ts into the image too. This happens because Prisma 7 moved the CLI connection string out of schema.prisma into the config file, so the migrate CLI refuses to run without it.

Error: the datasource.url property is required in your prisma config file when using prisma migrate deploy

Steps

1. Create prisma.config.ts at the project root (not inside the prisma folder):

   import { defineConfig, env } from 'prisma/config'
   import 'dotenv/config'

   export default defineConfig({
     schema: 'prisma/schema.prisma',
     datasource: { url: env('DATABASE_URL') },
   })

Expected: npx prisma validate prints that the schema is valid and that it loaded the Prisma config.

1. Docker users: copy the config file into the image next to the prisma folder:

   COPY prisma.config.ts ./
   COPY prisma ./prisma

Expected: the deploy container finds the config; the error disappears from the container logs.

1. Re-run the deploy:

   npx prisma migrate deploy

Expected: All migrations have been successfully applied. or No pending migrations to apply.

When to use

• You hit this exact error on prisma migrate deploy, migrate dev, or db push with Prisma 7 or later
• You upgraded from Prisma 5/6 and removed url from the datasource block

When not to use

• Prisma 6 or earlier: there the URL still lives in schema.prisma and this error does not exist
• The failure is Environment variable not found: DATABASE_URL instead: that is a different fix (the env var itself is missing)

Compatibility

Prisma 7.x CLI. Node 18+. Applies to migrate deploy, migrate dev, and db push.

Variant phrasing: same error on db push

db push reads the same config file, so the fix is identical.

Why it happens

Prisma 7 rejects url inside the datasource block of schema.prisma and expects the CLI connection string in prisma.config.ts instead. As a side effect, once the config file exists the CLI stops auto-loading .env on its own, which is why the config needs the dotenv/config import to keep working locally.

Edge cases

• Wrong location: Prisma looks for prisma.config.ts at the project root (and parent dirs), not prisma/config.ts.
• env() comes from prisma/config; process.env.DATABASE_URL works too, but env() is the documented form.
• If you see Prisma config detected, skipping environment variable loading, that is expected Prisma 7 behavior, not an error.