Error: "PrismaConfigEnvError: Missing required environment variable: DATABASE_URL"

Question

I’m working on a Next.js + TypeScript project with a MySQL database using Prisma.

I set up my configuration in prisma.config.ts like this:

import { defineConfig, env } from "prisma/config";

export default defineConfig({
  schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
  migrations: {
    path: "prisma/migrations",
  },
  engine: "classic",
  datasource: {
    url: env("DATABASE_URL"),
  },
});

I have this error:

PrismaConfigEnvError: Missing required environment variable: DATABASE_URL

Answer 1

I was missing this line:

import "dotenv/config";

I ran:

npm i dotenv

and added the above line.

My connection was established after I ran:

npx prisma db push

Answer 2

When using Prisma with SQLite, you might get this error:

PrismaConfigEnvError: Missing required environment variable: DATABASE_URL.

Even if you've set DATABASE_URL in your .env file.

This happens, because Prisma can't load environment variables from the .env file. This is how I fixed the issue: First, I installed dotenv: npm i dotenv

In my prisma.config.ts file, I imported dotenv and call config() to load the environment variables like this:

import { defineConfig } from "prisma/config";
import { config } from "dotenv";

config();

export default defineConfig({
  schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
  migrations: {
    path: "prisma/migrations",
  },
  engine: "classic",
  datasource: {
    url: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
  },
});