Embed Studio
Embed Prisma Studio in your own application
Prisma Studio can be embedded in your own application via the @prisma/studio-core
package.
It provides Studio
, a React component which renders Prisma Studio for your database. The Studio
component accepts an executor that calls a /studio
endpoint in your backend. The backend uses your DATABASE_URL
(connection string) to connect to the correct Prisma Postgres instance and execute the SQL query.
If you want to see what embedded Studio looks like, check out the demo on GitHub!
Use cases
You can embed Prisma Studio in your own app in various scenarios:
- Create an quick admin dashboard for editing data
- Multi-tenant application where every user has their own DB
- Provide an easy way to view and edit data to your users
Prerequisites
- Frontend: A React application
- Backend:
- A server-side application to expose the
/studio
endpoint (e.g. with Express or Hono) - A Prisma Postgres instance (you can create one with
npx prisma init --db
)
- A server-side application to expose the
The embeddable version of Prisma Studio will be available for other databases in combination with Prisma ORM soon.
Installation
Install the npm package:
npm install @prisma/studio-core
Frontend setup
In your React app, you can use the Studio
component to render the tables in your database via Prisma Studio. It receives an executor which is responsible for packaging the current SQL query in an HTTP request (also allowing for custom headers/payloads) and sending it to the /studio
endpoint in your backend.
Check out the demo on GitHub for a full reference implementation.
Minimal implementation
Here's what a minimal implementation looks like:
import { Studio } from "@prisma/studio-core/ui";
import { createPostgresAdapter } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/postgres-core";
import { createStudioBFFClient } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/bff";
import "@prisma/studio-core/ui/index.css"
function App() {
const adapter = useMemo(() => {
// 1. Create a client that points to your backend endpoint
const executor = createStudioBFFClient({
url: "http://localhost:4242/studio",
});
// 2. Create a Postgres adapter with the executor
const adapter = createPostgresAdapter({ executor });
return adapter;
}, []);
return (
<Layout>
<Studio adapter={adapter} />
</Layout>
);
}
Custom headers/payload implementation
Here's what an implementation with custom headers/payload looks like:
import { Studio } from "@prisma/studio-core/ui";
import { createPostgresAdapter } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/postgres-core";
import { createStudioBFFClient } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/bff";
import "@prisma/studio-core/ui/index.css"
function App() {
const adapter = useMemo(() => {
// 1. Create a client that points to your backend endpoint
const executor = createStudioBFFClient({
url: "http://localhost:4242/studio",
customHeaders: {
"X-Custom-Header": "example-value", // Pass any custom headers
},
customPayload: {
customValue: "example-value" // Pass any custom data
}
});
// 2. Create a Postgres adapter with the executor
const adapter = createPostgresAdapter({ executor });
return adapter;
}, []);
return (
<Layout>
<Studio adapter={adapter} />
</Layout>
);
}
Custom styling
You can customize the look and feel of Prisma Studio so that it matches your application’s design. This is done by passing a custom theme to the Studio
component. A theme is simply a set of CSS variables that define colors, spacing, and other style properties for both light and dark modes.
Here's an example of applying a custom theme:
import { Studio } from "@prisma/studio-core/ui";
import { createPostgresAdapter } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/postgres-core";
import { createStudioBFFClient } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/bff";
import "@prisma/studio-core/ui/index.css";
const customTheme = `
@layer base {
:root {
--background: 0 0% 100%;
--foreground: 20 14.3% 4.1%;
--primary: 47.9 95.8% 53.1%;
--primary-foreground: 26 83.3% 14.1%;
--border: 20 5.9% 90%;
--input: 20 5.9% 90%;
--ring: 20 14.3% 4.1%;
--radius: 0rem;
}
.dark {
--background: 20 14.3% 4.1%;
--foreground: 60 9.1% 97.8%;
--primary: 47.9 95.8% 53.1%;
--primary-foreground: 26 83.3% 14.1%;
--border: 12 6.5% 15.1%;
--input: 12 6.5% 15.1%;
--ring: 35.5 91.7% 32.9%;
}
}
`;
function App() {
const adapter = useMemo(() => {
const executor = createStudioBFFClient({
url: "http://localhost:4242/studio",
});
return createPostgresAdapter({ executor });
}, []);
return (
<Layout>
<Studio theme={customTheme} adapter={adapter} />
</Layout>
);
}
With this setup, Studio inherits your custom colors, borders, and typography rules, making it feel like a natural part of your app rather than a separate tool. You can define as many or as few variables as you need depending on the level of customization you want.
Concepts
Here's an overview of the key concepts in your frontend:
- Executor: The bridge between Studio and your backend, it's created using the
createStudioBFFClient
function - Adapter: Handles Postgres-specific query formatting
- Custom headers: Pass authentication tokens, user info, etc.
- Custom payload: Send additional context/data with each request
Backend setup
Your backend needs to expose a /studio
endpoint where the frontend sends its requests. The implementation below uses createPrismaPostgresHttpClient
from @prisma/studio-core
.
The backend also needs to have access to the Prisma Postgres API key, we recommend setting it as an environment variable as a best practice.
Check out the demo on GitHub for a full reference implementation.
Minimal implementation
Here's what a minimal implementation for the /studio
endpoint looks like with Hono. This assumes that your connection URL is available via the DATABASE_URL
env var:
import { Hono } from "hono";
import { createPrismaPostgresHttpClient } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/ppg";
import { serializeError } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/bff";
const app = new Hono().use("*", cors());
app.post("/studio", async (c) => {
// 1. Extract the query and custom data from the request
const { query } = await c.req.json();
// 2. Read DB URL from env vars
const url = process.env.DATABASE_URL;
// 3. Execute the query against Prisma Postgres
const [error, results] = await createPrismaPostgresHttpClient({ url }).execute(query);
// 6. Return results or errors
if (error) {
return c.json([serializeError(error)]);
}
return c.json([null, results]);
});
Custom headers/payload implementation
Here's what a slightly more advanced implementation for the /studio
endpoint looks like with Hono. In this case, a multi-tenant scenario is assumed where the frontend sends over a user ID and authentication token which is used on the backend to determine the Prisma Postgres instance that belongs to that user via a hypothetical determineUrlFromContext
function:
// server/index.ts
import { Hono } from "hono";
import { createPrismaPostgresHttpClient } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/ppg";
import { serializeError } from "@prisma/studio-core/data/bff";
const app = new Hono().use("*", cors());
app.post("/studio", async (c) => {
// 1. Extract the query and custom data from the request
const { query, customPayload } = await c.req.json();
// 2. Access custom headers (great for auth!)
const customHeader = c.req.header("X-Custom-Header");
console.log("Received headers:", { customHeader });
// 3. Use custom payload data
console.log("Received value:", customPayload.customValue);
// 4. Determine the URL (this is where you'd implement your auth logic)
const url = determineUrlFromContext(customHeader, customPayload);
// 5. Execute the query using Prisma Postgres or Prisma Accelerate
const [error, results] = await createPrismaPostgresHttpClient({ url }).execute(query);
// 6. Return results or errors
if (error) {
return c.json([serializeError(error)]);
}
return c.json([null, results]);
});
Concepts
- Query object: Contains the SQL query and parameters from Studio
- Custom payload: Additional data sent with each request
- Prisma Postgres client: Executes queries against your database
- Error handling: Properly serialize errors for Studio to display
Execution flow
Here's an overview of the execution flow in your embedded Prisma Studio version:
Adding user authentication
When you want to authenticate the users of your app against Prisma Studio, you can do that by adding custom logic around your embedded Prisma Studio version.
On the frontend, you can ensure to pass the Authorization
header and other data (e.g. a user ID) when creating the executor:
const executor = createStudioBFFClient({
url: "http://localhost:4242/studio",
customHeaders: {
"X-User-ID": currentUser.id,
"Authorization": `Bearer ${userToken}`,
},
});
In your server-side implementation, you can then retrieve these values from the incoming request and extract the Prisma Postgres API key that's needed for this user's query:
const userId = c.req.header("X-User-ID");
const token = c.req.header("Authorization");
const userApiKey = await getUserApiKey(userId, token);
Licensing
Embeddable Prisma Studio (Free) is licensed under Apache 2.0.
✔️ Free for production use
⚠️ Prisma branding must remain visible and unaltered
🔐 To remove our branding or to inquire about upcoming partner-only features, ping us here: partnerships@prisma.io
Telemetry
This package includes anonymized telemetry to help us improve Prisma Studio.
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