Deploy a Web App Built on CockroachDB with Vercel

This tutorial shows you how to use Vercel to deploy a web application built with Next.js, Express, Prisma, and CockroachDB Standard.

Use the browser
Use the command line

Before you begin

Before starting the tutorial, do the following:

Create a CockroachDB Cloud account.
Create a Vercel account.

Step 1. Get the code

Create a GitHub account if you haven’t already.
In GitHub, create your own fork of CockroachDB’s prisma-examples repo.

Step 2. Create a Vercel project

From the Vercel dashboard, click Add new… > Project.
Select the prisma-examples repository you forked in Step 1 to import.
From the Framework preset dropdown, select Next.js.
In the Root directory field, click Edit.
Select the typescript > rest-nextjs-api-routes directory.
Click Continue.
Open the Build and Output Settings and toggle the build command’s Override switch to on.
Enter yarn prisma db push && yarn next build as the Build command.
Click Deploy. Your deployment will fail until you integrate CockroachDB in the next step, so you can leave this screen without waiting for it to finish.

Step 3. Integrate CockroachDB

Navigate to the CockroachDB page of Vercel’s integration marketplace.
Click Add Integration.
Select your Vercel account and click Continue.
Select the project you just created and click Continue.
Accept the permissions and click Add Integration. A window will pop up prompting you to log in to CockroachDB Cloud if you haven’t already.
In the CockroachDB Cloud pop-up window, select the organization in which you want to create a new CockroachDB Standard cluster.
Click Create. After a few seconds, your cluster will be created and the pop-up window will close automatically. Once this is done, your Vercel project will have the DATABASE_URL environment variable automatically populated with the connection string for your new cluster.

Step 3. Deploy the application

Navigate to the Overview page for your Vercel project.
Select the Deployments tab.
Click Redeploy.
Click Redeploy again from the pop-up dialog. Your project will be deployed in a few seconds. You can view the final product by clicking on the Domain link on your project’s Overview page.

Before you begin

Before starting the tutorial, do the following:

Create a CockroachDB Cloud account.
Create a Vercel account.

Step 1. Create a CockroachDB Standard cluster

Create a CockroachDB Cloud account. If this is your first CockroachDB Cloud organization, it will be credited with $400 in free trial credits to get you started.
On the Get Started page, click Create cluster.
On the Select a plan page, select Standard.
On the Cloud & Regions page, select a cloud provider (GCP or AWS).
In the Regions section, select a region for the cluster. Refer to CockroachDB Cloud Regions for the regions where CockroachDB Standard clusters can be deployed. To create a multi-region cluster, click Add region and select additional regions.
Click Next: Capacity.
On the Capacity page, keep the Provisioned capacity at the default value of 2 vCPUs. Click Next: Finalize.
On the Finalize page, name your cluster. If an active free trial is listed in the right pane, you will not need to add a payment method, though you will need to do this by the end of the trial to maintain your organization’s clusters. Click Create cluster. Your cluster will be created in a few seconds and the Create SQL user dialog will display.

After the cluster is created, the Connection info window appears. Click the Connection string tab and copy the connection string to a secure location. You will use this connection string to connect to CockroachDB later in the tutorial.

The connection string is pre-populated with your username, cluster name, and other details, including your password. Your password, in particular, will be provided only once. Save it in a secure place (we recommend a password manager) to connect to your cluster in the future. If you forget your password, you can reset it by going to the SQL Users page for the cluster, found at https://cockroachlabs.cloud/cluster/<CLUSTER ID>/users.

Step 2. Get the code

Clone the cockroachdb fork of the prisma-examples repo:

$ git clone git@github.com:cockroachdb/prisma-examples.git

Navigate to the rest-nextjs-api-routes directory:
$ cd typescript/rest-nextjs-api-routes
Install the application dependencies:
$ npm install
Install the vercel and prisma CLI tools:
$ npm install --global vercel prisma

Step 3. Initialize the database

Save the connection string you obtained earlier from the CockroachDB Cloud Console to the DATABASE_URL environment variable in an .env file in your project:
$ echo "DATABASE_URL=<connection-string" >> .env
Prisma loads the variables defined in .env to the project environment. By default, Prisma uses the DATABASE_URL environment variable as the connection string to the database.
Run Prisma Migrate to initialize the database with the schema defined in prisma/prisma.schema.
$ prisma migrate dev --name init
You should see the following output:
Your database is now in sync with your schema. ✔ Generated Prisma Client (3.11.0 | library) to ./node_modules/@prisma/client in 87ms
This command also initializes Prisma Client to communicate with your CockroachDB cluster, based on the configuration in the prisma/schema.prisma file.

Step 4. Deploy the application

(Optional) Run the app server locally to preview your site:
$ npm run dev
You should see the following output:
ready - started server on 0.0.0.0:3000, url: http://localhost:3000

Run the vercel command to start deploying the app:

$ vercel deploy --confirm

You will be asked to sign into your Vercel account. When you authenticate your credentials, you should see the following message:

> Success! GitHub authentication complete ...

The --confirm flag instructs Vercel to deploy the app to the example-app-typescript-vercel Vercel project, using the default settings:

🔗  Linked to username/example-app-typescript-vercel (created .vercel and added it to .gitignore)
🔍  Inspect: https://vercel.com/username/example-app-typescript-vercel/123456789 [1s]
✅  Production: https://example-app-typescript-vercel-username.vercel.app [copied to clipboard] [47s]
📝  Deployed to production. Run `vercel --prod` to overwrite later (https://vercel.link/2F).
💡  To change the domain or build command, go to https://vercel.com/ericharmeling/example-app-typescript-vercel/settings

Follow the links provided to view and manage your deployed application.

Get Started

CockroachDB and AI

Feature Overview

Data Resilience

Connect to an Application

Self-Hosted Deployments

Schema Design

Reads and Writes

Stream Data

Cross-Cluster Replication

Multi-Region Capabilities

Optimize Performance

Integrate

Deploy a Web App Built on CockroachDB with Vercel

Before you begin

Step 1. Get the code

Step 2. Create a Vercel project

Step 3. Integrate CockroachDB

Step 3. Deploy the application

Before you begin

Step 1. Create a CockroachDB Standard cluster

Step 2. Get the code

Step 3. Initialize the database

Step 4. Deploy the application

See also

​Before you begin

​Step 1. Get the code

​Step 2. Create a Vercel project

​Step 3. Integrate CockroachDB

​Step 3. Deploy the application

​Before you begin

​Step 1. Create a CockroachDB Standard cluster

​Step 2. Get the code

​Step 3. Initialize the database

​Step 4. Deploy the application

​See also

Before you begin

Step 1. Get the code

Step 2. Create a Vercel project

Step 3. Integrate CockroachDB

Step 3. Deploy the application

Before you begin

Step 1. Create a CockroachDB Standard cluster

Step 2. Get the code

Step 3. Initialize the database

Step 4. Deploy the application

See also