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Get Started with Waddler and Supabase

This guide assumes familiarity with:
  • dotenv - package for managing environment variables - read here
  • tsx - package for running TypeScript files - read here
  • Supabase - open source Firebase alternative - read here

Basic file structure

This is the basic file structure of the project.

📦 <project root>
 ├ 📂 src
 │   └ 📜 index.ts
 ├ 📜 .env
 ├ 📜 package.json
 └ 📜 tsconfig.json

Step 1 - Install postgres package

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun 
npm i waddler postgres dotenv
npm i -D tsx

Step 2 - Setup connection variables

Create a .env file in the root of your project and add your database connection variable:

DATABASE_URL=

Step 3 - Connect Waddler to the database

index.ts
import { waddler } from 'waddler/postgres-js'

async function main() {
    const sql = waddler(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);
}

main();

If you need a synchronous connection, you can use our additional connection API, where you specify a driver connection and pass it to the Waddler instance.

index.ts
import { waddler } from 'waddler/postgres-js'
import postgres from 'postgres'

async function main() {
    const client = postgres(process.env.DATABASE_URL!)
    const sql = waddler({ client });
}

main();
tips

If you decide to use connection pooling via Supabase (described here), and have “Transaction” pool mode enabled, then ensure to turn off prepare, as prepared statements are not supported.

index.ts
import { waddler } from 'waddler/postgres-js'
import postgres from 'postgres'

async function main() {
    // Disable prefetch as it is not supported for "Transaction" pool mode 
    const client = postgres(process.env.DATABASE_URL!, { prepare: false })
    const sql = waddler({ client });
}

main();

Step 4 - Create a table


(async () => {
  await sql.unsafe(`create table users (
    id integer primary key generated always as identity,
    name varchar(255) not null,
    age integer not null,
    email varchar(255) not null unique
);
  `);
})()

Step 5 - Seed and Query the database

Let’s update the src/index.ts file with queries to create, read, update, and delete users

src/index.ts
import 'dotenv/config';
import { waddler } from 'waddler/postgres-js';
  
const sql = waddler(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);

async function main() {
  const user = [
    'John',
    30,
    '[email protected]',
  ];

  await sql`insert into ${sql.identifier('users')} values ${sql.values([[sql.default, ...user]])};`;
  console.log('New user created!')

  const users = await sql`select * from ${sql.identifier('users')};`;
  console.log('Getting all users from the database: ', users)
  /*
  const users: {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    age: number;
    email: string;
  }[]
  */

  await sql`update ${sql.identifier('users')} set age = ${31} where email = ${user[2]};`;
  console.log('User info updated!')

  await sql`delete from ${sql.identifier('users')} where email = ${user[2]};`;
  console.log('User deleted!')
}

main();

Step 6 - Run index.ts file

To run any TypeScript files, you have several options, but let’s stick with one: using tsx

You’ve already installed tsx, so we can run our queries now

Run index.ts script

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun 
npx tsx src/index.ts
tips

We suggest using bun to run TypeScript files. With bun, such scripts can be executed without issues or additional settings, regardless of whether your project is configured with CommonJS (CJS), ECMAScript Modules (ESM), or any other module format. To run a script with bun, use the following command:

bun src/index.ts

If you don’t have bun installed, check the Bun installation docs