1. dialects
prorm
  • prorm documentation
  • Known test gaps
  • Architecture
  • Core concepts
  • Database types & coverage
  • Getting started
  • Going further
  • compliance
    • Compliance
    • The security toolkit: `prorm audit`
    • Checklists by regulation
    • Declaring personal data
    • Evidence bundles
    • Evidence
    • Frameworks: `@Security`
    • Jurisdictions
    • Platform policies
    • Protecting data
    • The regulation dataset
    • Residency and cross-border transfers
    • Retention & integrity
    • Status
    • Subject rights
  • decorators
    • prorm with decorators
    • Models with decorators
    • Querying a decorated model
    • Relations with decorators
  • diagrams
    • Diagram generators
    • Chen diagram
    • Class diagram
    • Dependency diagram
    • ER diagram
    • Flow diagram
    • From your models to a diagram
    • Gantt diagram
    • Index diagram
    • Migration diagram
    • Model diagram
    • Package diagram
    • Crow’s-foot diagram
    • Schema documentation
    • Sequence diagram
    • State diagram
    • Tree diagram
  • dialects
    • SQL dialects
    • AlloyDB Dialect
    • AlloyDB Omni Dialect
    • Amazon Athena Dialect
    • Aurora DSQL Dialect
    • Amazon Aurora MySQL Dialect
    • Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Dialect
    • Azure Database for MySQL Dialect
    • Azure Database for PostgreSQL Dialect
    • Azure SQL Database Dialect
    • Azure SQL Managed Instance Dialect
    • Google BigQuery Dialect
    • Citus Dialect
    • ClickHouse dialect
    • Cloud Authentication (`cloud-auth`)
    • Cloud SQL for SQL Server Dialect
    • Cloud SQL for MySQL Dialect
    • Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL Dialect
    • CockroachDB Dialect
    • Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL Dialect
    • CrateDB Dialect
    • Cloudflare D1 Dialect
    • Databricks dialect
    • IBM Db2 Dialect
    • Dolt Dialect
    • Apache Doris Dialect
    • Druid Dialect
    • DuckDB Dialect
    • Exasol dialect
    • Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse Dialect
    • Firebird Dialect
    • Greenplum Dialect
    • SAP HANA Dialect
    • MySQL HeatWave Dialect
    • Azure Data Explorer (Kusto) Dialect — T-SQL
    • MariaDB Dialect
    • Materialize Dialect
    • MonetDB Dialect
    • MotherDuck Dialect
    • Microsoft SQL Server Dialect
    • MySQL Dialect
    • Neon Dialect
    • OceanBase Dialect
    • openGauss Dialect
    • Oracle Dialect
    • Oracle Autonomous Database Dialect
    • ParadeDB Dialect
    • PolarDB Dialect
    • PostgreSQL Dialect
    • Presto Dialect
    • QuestDB Dialect
    • Aurora RDS Data API Dialect (`rdsdata`)
    • Amazon RDS for Db2 Dialect
    • Amazon RDS for MariaDB Dialect
    • Amazon RDS for SQL Server Dialect
    • Amazon RDS for MySQL Dialect
    • Amazon RDS for Oracle Dialect
    • Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Dialect
    • Amazon Redshift
    • Amazon Redshift Data API Dialect
    • RisingWave Dialect
    • rqlite Dialect
    • SingleStore Dialect
    • Snowflake Dialect
    • Google Cloud Spanner Dialect
    • Spanner (PostgreSQL interface) Dialect
    • SQLite Dialect
    • StarRocks Dialect
    • Supabase Dialect
    • Azure Synapse Analytics (dedicated SQL pool)
    • Teradata Dialect
    • TiDB Dialect
    • TimescaleDB Dialect
    • Trino Dialect
    • Turso / libSQL Dialect
    • Vertica dialect
    • Vitess Dialect
    • Yellowbrick Dialect
    • YugabyteDB Dialect
  • guides
    • Access rules and behaviour profiles
    • ArangoDB (AQL)
    • Associations
    • Audit levels and escalation
    • Audit logging
    • In the browser
    • Bulk operations
    • Caching
    • Capabilities, tiers and team roles
    • CLI
    • Cloudflare
    • Compliance & data protection
    • Connection Pooling & Performance
    • Security in the console
    • Couchbase: structured N1QL queries
    • Data types
    • Decorators
    • Eager loading
    • Enums and constants
    • Error handling & error types
    • Extensions
    • External fields
    • Foreign data wrappers
    • Graph databases
    • Hooks & lifecycle events
    • Indexes & constraints
    • InfluxDB: structured Flux pipelines
    • klock-errors
    • klock — the `.klock` file
    • Local databases (`prorm db up`)
    • Structured log search — Splunk, Graylog, Papertrail, Sumo Logic
    • Logging
    • Grafana Loki: structured LogQL queries
    • MCP server
    • Migrate — the data transfer subsystem
    • Migrations & Schema Sync
    • Models from an existing database
    • Defining models
    • Multiple databases
    • OrientDB, Neptune and TigerGraph
    • Passwords
    • Importing a Prisma schema
    • Structured PromQL and MetricsQL
    • Query firewall
    • QueryInterface
    • Query operators reference
    • Query optimization
    • Composing find options with `pipe()` and `Q`
    • Query safety: the fail-closed WHERE guard
    • Querying
    • Raw Queries & Query Building
    • Read replicas
    • Schema diffing & migration generation
    • Views, triggers & other schema objects
    • Scopes & default scopes
    • Seeders
    • SPARQL / RDF triplestores
    • SQL constants
    • SQL features
    • SQL function builders
    • SQLite advanced features
    • StoreKey — a prod-orm database as the storage
    • Streaming results
    • Terraform
    • Transactions & Isolation Levels
    • Type mapping: legacy and modern
    • TypeScript types
    • Database users, roles & privileges
    • Validation & constraints
    • Virtual & Computed Fields
    • Writing docs
  • javascript
    • prorm in JavaScript
    • Models in JavaScript
    • Querying in JavaScript
    • Relations in JavaScript
  • runbooks
    • Operational runbooks
    • Connection failures
    • Credential rotation
    • Failover
    • Incident checklist
    • Deploying klock v2
    • Migration rollback
  • running-databases
    • Running databases in Docker
    • Running prorm under Bun in Docker
    • Running Cassandra in Docker with prorm
    • Running ClickHouse in Docker with prorm
    • Running CockroachDB in Docker with prorm
    • Running prorm under Deno in Docker
    • Running Elasticsearch in Docker with prorm
    • Running MariaDB in Docker with prorm
    • Running MongoDB in Docker with prorm
  • prorm control plane
    • Introduction
    • Authentication
    • Errors
    • Getting started
      • Service
        • Is it up
        • This description
    • Account
      • Sign-up and verification
        • Create an account
        • Exchange credentials for a token
        • Verify with the emailed code
        • Verify by clicking the emailed link
        • Name the parent or guardian
        • What a consent link is about
        • Give consent for a child's account
        • Ask the parent or guardian again
        • Send a new code and link
      • Family
        • Everyone this account is responsible for
        • One child, in detail
        • Turn a limit on or off
      • Profile
        • Who am I
        • Change the account
        • Every address on the account
        • Add an address
        • Confirm an address with the code mailed to it
        • Mail a fresh code to an unconfirmed address
        • Make an address primary
        • Remove an address
        • What this caller may do
    • Security
      • Sessions
        • Everywhere this account is signed in
        • Sign out everywhere else
        • Sign one out
        • A token for the CLI on a named machine
        • A token for the customer console, from the staff one
        • Park a sign-in for the CLI to collect
        • The CLI collecting its sign-in
        • The team's members' live sessions
        • Sign a member's session out
        • Sign an account out everywhere
        • Everywhere the account is signed in
        • Sign an account's session out
      • Single sign-on
        • Begin a single sign-on
        • The provider's return
        • Link the signed-in account to a team's provider
        • Which team an address signs in to
        • The team's single sign-on, as a member sees it
        • Set the team's OpenID Connect provider up, or change it
        • Remove the provider
        • The team's domain claims and the DNS record each needs
        • Prove a claimed domain
      • MFA and passwords
        • Start enrolling a second factor
        • Prove the app has it
        • Remove the second factor
        • Ask for a reset link
        • Set a new password with the emailed token
      • Klock
        • Open a device-bound klock session
        • Check in, for the next grant
        • Step up the session asking
        • Rotate the device key
        • Freeze a session
        • Unfreeze a session
        • A guest grant
        • The revocation feed
        • The published keyset
        • What this control plane supports
      • Devices
        • Your devices, or a team's
        • Approve a new device's pairing code
        • One device
        • Rename a device
        • Revoke a device
        • Suspend a device
        • Reinstate a suspended device
        • Wipe a device
        • Ask a device to rotate its key
        • The team's members' devices
        • Revoke a member's device
        • An account's devices
        • Revoke an account's device
        • Wipe an account's device
        • The device fleet
      • Access rules and behaviour
        • The access rules that bear on you
        • Add an access rule
        • This request, as the rules see it
        • One access rule
        • Remove an access rule
        • The behaviour profiles that bear on you
        • Add or change a behaviour profile
        • The profile presets
        • Your behaviour findings
        • Acknowledge a finding
        • One behaviour profile
        • Remove a behaviour profile
        • The team's access rules
        • Add a team access rule
        • Remove a team access rule
        • The team's behaviour profiles
        • Add or change a team behaviour profile
        • Remove a team behaviour profile
        • What the team's profiles caught
        • Acknowledge a team finding
      • Recovery and lockdown
        • Ask for a recovery link
        • Recover access with the emailed code
        • Is the account locked down
        • Lock the account down
        • Release a lockdown
        • Lock a member down
        • Release a member's lockdown
      • MCP tokens
        • Make a delegated token for one MCP client
        • The account's delegated tokens
        • Revoke a delegated token
        • What a delegated token may do now
        • Run one MCP tool with a delegated token
        • Run a device-signed MCP tool call relayed by the MCP Worker
      • Kerberos
        • Give the team its own Kerberos realm
        • The team's realm
        • Remove the team's realm
    • Logging and monitoring
      • Audit log
        • What has been done to the account
        • What has happened to this account
        • The account's audit trail
      • Operations
        • Everything that has been asked of this database
        • One, with its steps
        • Stop it
        • Put a failed one back in the queue
        • Every operation, across all accounts
      • Metrics and events
        • Every measurement, for a graph
        • Who did what to it
    • Billing
      • Plans and pricing
        • What the plans allow
        • The rate card
        • What one database would cost
        • What this account is paying for, itemised
      • Subscriptions and invoices
        • What this month's invoice will say
        • What this account is on
        • What it has been charged
        • Start a Stripe Checkout session
        • Open the customer portal
        • Stripe's events
        • Buy more connection pools
      • Team billing
        • The team's billing account
        • What the team has been charged
        • What this month's invoice will say
        • The team's cards
        • Add a card, through a Stripe-hosted setup session
        • Make a card the team's default
        • Remove a card
        • Start the team paying
        • Open the Stripe portal on the team's customer
        • Change the team's plan
        • Who receives the team's bills
        • How the team pays for transfers
    • Support
      • Support chat
        • My conversations
        • Start a conversation
        • Every support conversation, open first
        • A ticket for the socket
        • One conversation, with who is in it and who is connected
        • Rename a group; open or close a support conversation
        • The lines, oldest first
        • Say something
        • Add somebody
        • Mark read
    • Administration
      • Users
        • Every account
        • One account, with everything hanging off it
        • Grant or revoke admin
        • Verify an account by hand
        • Lock or unlock sign-in
        • Allow or hold provisioning
        • Send the verification mail again
        • Set the plan by hand
      • Platform
        • Every database and store, across all accounts
        • The counts worth putting on a dashboard
      • Staff and permissions
        • What kind of admin the caller is, and which scopes they hold
        • The admin presets
        • Every admin, and the scopes each resolves to
        • Make an account an admin of a kind
        • Change an admin's kind, or a custom admin's scopes
        • Revoke admin
      • Team administration
        • Every team, with its owner and size
        • One team in full — members with their accounts, and projects
        • Hand the team to another member
        • Put an account in the team, active at once
        • Change a member's role
        • Remove a member
      • Assumed identities
        • Assume an identity — act as a customer account
        • The identities the caller holds open
        • End an assumed identity
      • Support inbox
        • The platform's addresses
        • Add a platform address
        • One address, with its counts
        • Change an address's label, routing, or whether it accepts mail
        • Remove an address that holds no mail
        • Make, adopt or repair the address's routing rule
        • Every admin's personal address, made where missing
        • File a raw message, as if it had arrived
        • The inbox
        • One message, whole
        • Mark a message
        • Hand a message to an admin, or take it back
        • Leave an internal note
        • Reply, from the address the message came to
        • What is waiting
    • Databases
      • Databases
        • Data stores
          • Every data store on the account
          • Provision a data store
          • Change a data store that is already running
          • One data store
          • Deprovision it
          • Report what it is using
          • How to reach a data store
        • Connections and credentials
          • The api keys on a database
          • Issue a key
          • Revoke a key
          • The engine users we created
          • Create a user inside the database
          • Give a user a new password
          • Drop a user
          • How the database is reached
          • Set how it is reached
          • Revoke every api key on it
          • How to connect to it
          • The ssh keys that open its bastion
          • Add a key, or have one made
          • The private half of a generated key, once
          • Revoke an ssh key
        • Schema and objects
          • The SQL objects we put in it
          • Create one, and apply it
          • What is in the database, as the engine reports it
          • One table
          • What it would run, without running it
          • Redefine an object in place
          • Drop it
          • The extensions installed in it
        • Migrations
          • A plan compiled to statements, recording nothing
          • The migrations recorded for it
          • Record one
          • Apply everything recorded and not yet run
          • Apply everything pending, oldest version first
        • Lifecycle
          • Grow or shrink it
          • Stop it accepting connections
          • Start it again
          • Move it to another region
        • Backups and replicas
          • Take a backup
          • The backups it has
          • Restore one into it
          • What has been restored into it, and from where
          • Its read copies
          • Add one
        • Policies
          • The catalog
          • One policy
          • What this database is held to
          • Switch a policy on, or change its knobs
          • Switch it off
          • Mark the policies reviewed
          • Evaluate the periodic policies now
          • Who is behind a credential
        • Passwordless
          • The database's passwordless sessions
          • Issue a passwordless session (v1)
          • Revoke a passwordless session
          • Bind a session to a device key
          • Issue a v2 session for a host to bind
          • Redeem an enrolment ticket on the host
          • Check a passwordless credential
          • Run one described query under a passwordless credential
        • Database roles
          • The database's roles
          • Define a role
          • One role
          • Change what a role permits
          • Delete a role, and revoke every key granted it
          • Grant a role, which mints a key
          • Who holds a role
          • The api keys bound to a role
        • Pools
          • A database's connection pools, and how busy each is
          • Open another pool
          • Rename a pool or change its size
          • Close a pool
        • Data plane
          • Run a query against a database
          • Several statements, in order, over one connection
          • Is this database answering
          • What the proxy itself is holding
        • Transfers
          • The strategies this account's tier may use
          • Price a transfer without creating it
          • The account's transfer jobs, newest first
          • Create a transfer job
          • One job, and whether its certificate holds
          • Cancel an unfinished job
          • Start a created job, confirming its price
          • Report a job's status (the runner, or the owner's side of a local run)
        • Every database on the account
        • Provision a database
        • Change a database that is already running
        • One database
        • Deprovision it
        • Read or write it
        • Report what it is using
        • The engines this API will provision
        • Where a managed database can be put
    • Teams
      • Teams
        • Members
          • Who is on it
          • Invite somebody
          • Accept an invitation
          • Change somebody's role
          • Remove somebody
        • Projects
          • The projects a team runs
          • Start one
          • Rename a project, or move its environment
          • Delete a project
          • One project, and what is in it
          • Put a database or store in it
          • What is in a project
          • Take one out
        • The teams this account is on
        • Start one
        • The twelve roles, and what each may do
        • Rename a team
        • Close a team
        • One team
        • Hand the team to somebody else
        • Leave a team
    • Schemas
      • Error
      • ValidationErrors
      • Token
      • PolicyCategory
      • PolicySeverity
      • PolicyAction
      • PolicyTrigger
      • PolicyParam
      • Policy
      • PolicyCatalog
      • PolicyAssignment
      • PolicyOutcome
      • PolicyFiring
      • CredentialTrace
      • Relation
      • Restrictions
      • ChildSummary
      • SignupRequest
      • SigninRequest
      • UpdateMeRequest
      • User
      • Address
      • GeoPoint
      • D1Region
      • Usage
      • UsageReport
      • Resource
      • Database
      • DataStore
      • NewDatabase
      • NewDataStore
      • QueryRequest
      • DatabasePrivilege
      • ApiKey
      • DbUser
      • Access
      • AccessRequest
      • DatabaseObject
      • NewDatabaseObject
      • NewMigration
      • SchemaOperation
      • Migration
      • Operation
      • Session
      • AdminPowers
      • Admin
      • AuditEntry
      • TeamRole
      • Conversation
      • ChatMessage
      • TeamSso
      • Team
      • TeamMember
      • SshKey
      • ConnectionInfo
      • InboxAddress
      • InboxMailbox
      • InboxMessageSummary
      • InboxMessage
      • InboxNote
      • Page
      • Quote
      • Plan
      • ApiError
      • CapabilityRefusal
      • KlockErrorCode
      • PageWindow
      • SessionView
      • KlockStepUpRequest
      • KlockOpenRequest
      • KlockOpenedSession
      • UpdateMeResult
      • CapabilitiesView
      • SessionLimits
      • Device
      • DeviceListed
      • DeviceTeamRef
      • DeviceCommand
      • DeviceAuditLine
      • DeviceActionRequest
      • StaffActionRequest
      • ManagedSession
      • SessionRevoked
      • AccessRule
      • AccessRuleRequest
      • BehaviourProfile
      • BehaviourProfileRequest
      • BehaviourProfileSaved
      • BehaviourFinding
      • BehaviourFindingAck
      • StepUpProof
      • Removed
      • MemberLockdownRequest
      • McpClient
      • McpDelegatedView
      • McpToolCall
      • McpForwardRequest
      • PasswordlessScope
      • RoleScope
      • PasswordlessSession
      • PasswordlessTlsMaterial
      • PasswordlessKerberosMaterial
      • ServiceDeviceKeys
      • ServiceSession
      • DatabaseRole
      • TransferEndpoint
      • TransferJobRequest
      • TransferQuote
      • TransferStrategy
      • TransferJob
      • TransferJobAccess
      • Pool
      • PoolAllowance
      • BillingSubscription
      • Invoice
      • BillingContact
      • PaymentMethod
      • UpcomingCharges
      • TeamBilling
      • TeamKerberosRealm
      • TeamSsoDomain
      • TeamSsoResponse
      • StoreConnection
      • BatchFailure
      • ProxyStatus
  1. dialects

ClickHouse dialect

ClickHouse is a columnar OLAP database built for real-time analytics over very
large datasets — aggregations, rollups, and dashboards scanning billions of
rows, not row-by-row transactional CRUD. Reach for this dialect when your
workload is "append a lot of events, then run fast aggregate queries over
them," and not "many small transactional reads/writes with strict per-row
consistency."
Because ClickHouse is architecturally unlike the OLTP dialects
(Postgres/MySQL/MariaDB/SQLite/MSSQL/Oracle), several assumptions the rest of
this ORM makes about "a SQL database" simply do not hold. ClickHouseDialect
(src/dialects/clickhouse/index.ts) is deliberately explicit about where the
behavior genuinely differs — throwing on unsupported capabilities and warning
where an option is silently ignored — rather than papering over the gaps. Read
Key differences from an OLTP database
before you write any code against it.

Overview#

dialect'clickhouse'
Driver@clickhouse/client (promise-native, official)
Wire protocolClickHouse HTTP interface
Default port8123 (HTTP), 8443 (HTTPS)
TransactionsNone (single INSERT is atomic at the block level)
ConstraintsCHECK only; no enforced PRIMARY KEY/UNIQUE/FOREIGN KEY
Primary keyNo auto-increment; the MergeTree ORDER BY (sorting key) stands in
StatusExperimental
PropertyValue
Dialect nameclickhouse
Extendsnothing — implements Dialect directly
Driver@clickhouse/client
Cloud SDKnone
Default port8123
Local runtimeprorm db up --dialect clickhouse (clickhouse/clickhouse-server:24.8.4.13-alpine); docker-compose.test.yml

Quick start#

Install#

$ npm install ts-prorm-orm @clickhouse/client
$ pnpm add ts-prorm-orm @clickhouse/client
$ yarn add ts-prorm-orm @clickhouse/client
$ bun add ts-prorm-orm @clickhouse/client

Connect#

import { Prorm } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

export const db = new Prorm({
  dialect: 'clickhouse',
  host: 'localhost',
  database: 'default',
  username: 'default',
  password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD,
  dialectOptions: {
    protocol: 'http', // 'https' on 8443
  },
});
import { Prorm } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

export const db = new Prorm({
  dialect: 'clickhouse',
  url: 'clickhouse://default:secret@localhost:8123/default',
  dialectOptions: {
    protocol: 'http', // 'https' on 8443
  },
});
A URL is folded into host, port, database, username and password before the dialect is built; any of those passed alongside it wins.

Define a model#

import { DataTypes } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

const User = db.define('User', {
  id: { type: DataTypes.INTEGER(), primaryKey: true, allowNull: false },
  email: { type: DataTypes.STRING(255), allowNull: false },
  name: { type: DataTypes.STRING(100) },
}, { timestamps: false });

await db.sync(); // CREATE TABLE — see Generated SQL below
The key has no autoIncrement: the engine has no sequence or identity column the dialect will emit, so the application supplies id. email is not declared unique: the engine has no enforced UNIQUE constraint. timestamps: false leaves out createdAt/updatedAt: with them, sync() gives each a DATETIME DEFAULT now() column.
[!NOTE] Keys are not constraints
primaryKey only feeds the table's ORDER BY (sorting key); ClickHouse does not enforce PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE or FOREIGN KEY, and the dialect warns when a model declares them.

Query#

import { Op } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

await User.create({ id: 1, email: 'ada@example.com', name: 'Ada' });

const page = await User.findAll({
  where: { name: { [Op.like]: 'A%' } },
  order: [['id', 'ASC']],
  limit: 20,
  offset: 40,
});

Generated SQL#

Each block is the statement the model call above it hands the dialect's query(), captured with the driver stubbed out. The model layer inlines the values.

Create table#

db.sync() for the model in the Quick start:
CREATE TABLE

Insert, update and delete#

await User.create({ id: 1, email: 'ada@example.com', name: 'Ada' });
await User.update({ name: 'Grace' }, { where: { email: 'ada@example.com' } });
await User.destroy({ where: { id: 1 } });

Upsert#

await User.upsert({ id: 1, email: 'ada@example.com', name: 'Ada Lovelace' });
upsert() also reads the row by primary key before and after the write, to return the instance.
[!WARNING] A plain INSERT
The engine has no conflict clause, so this upsert inserts and never updates an existing row.

Pagination#

await User.findAll({
  where: { name: { [Op.like]: 'A%' } },
  order: [['id', 'ASC']],
  limit: 20,
  offset: 40,
});

Transaction#

[!CAUTION] No transactions
ClickHouse does not support multi-statement transactions (no BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK spanning multiple statements). Only a single INSERT is atomic (at the block level). Do not rely on startTransaction()/commitTransaction()/rollbackTransaction() with this dialect.

DISTINCT ON#

distinctOn keeps the first row of each group in order — here the newest row per name:
const latest = db.getDialectInstance()!.buildSelectQuery({
  tableName: 'users',
  distinctOn: ['name'],
  order: [['name', 'ASC'], ['id', 'DESC']],
});
await db.query(latest.sql, { replacements: latest.values });
Type mapping for the portable descriptors: STRING → String, auto-increment INTEGER → Int32, BOOLEAN → Bool, DATE → DateTime, UUID → UUID, JSON → String. The type comparison lines the major engines up side by side.

Connection#

Connect over the HTTP interface. dialect: 'clickhouse' selects this dialect;
the driver builds a ${protocol}://${host}:${port} URL from your options.
import { Prorm } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

const prorm = new Prorm({
  dialect: 'clickhouse',
  host: 'localhost',
  port: 8123,          // ClickHouse's default HTTP port
  database: 'default',
  username: 'default',
  password: '',
  dialectOptions: {
    protocol: 'http',    // 'http' | 'https' (use 8443 for https)
  },
});

await prorm.authenticate(); // pings the server up front, like the pooled dialects
ClickHouseDialectOptions also accepts:
engine — default ENGINE = ... clause used by createTable() when a
call doesn't specify one. Default: 'MergeTree()'.
orderBy — default ORDER BY column(s) used when a table has no
primaryKey column and no per-call orderBy is given.
requestTimeout — request timeout in ms, forwarded to @clickhouse/client.
clickhouseSettings — arbitrary ClickHouse session settings applied to
every request (e.g. { max_execution_time: 60 }).
Under the hood the dialect routes SELECT/SHOW/DESCRIBE/EXPLAIN through the
driver's query() (reading rows as JSONEachRow) and everything else — DDL,
INSERT, and the ALTER TABLE ... UPDATE/DELETE mutations — through
command(), which returns no row data.

Key differences from an OLTP database#

None of these are bugs. They are how ClickHouse works, and they will surprise
you if you treat this dialect like a normal RDBMS.

CREATE TABLE requires an ENGINE and (for MergeTree) an ORDER BY#

There is no default storage engine. MergeTree-family engines also require an
ORDER BY — the sorting key, which stands in for a traditional primary key.
It controls physical sort/merge order, not uniqueness.
createTable()/Model.sync() default the engine to MergeTree() and infer
ORDER BY in this priority order:
1.
an explicit orderBy passed on the table options,
2.
any column(s) marked primaryKey,
3.
the dialect-level orderBy default,
4.
the first declared column,
5.
tuple() ("no sorting key") if nothing else is available.
import { DataTypes } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

const AnalyticsEvent = prorm.define('Event', {
  user_id:    { type: DataTypes.BIGINT, primaryKey: true },
  event_type: DataTypes.STRING,
  created_at: { type: DataTypes.DATE, primaryKey: true },
});

// -> CREATE TABLE `Event` (...) ENGINE = MergeTree() ORDER BY (`user_id`, `created_at`)
await prorm.sync();
Note the column defaults are inverted from standard SQL: ClickHouse columns are
NOT NULL unless you opt into Nullable(T). This dialect wraps a column in
Nullable(...) automatically unless allowNull: false is set (or the type
is already Array/Nullable/LowCardinality/Map/Tuple).

No PRIMARY KEY / UNIQUE / FOREIGN KEY enforcement#

ClickHouse will happily store duplicate "keys." A column's primaryKey flag
only feeds the ORDER BY inference above; unique and references are ignored
(with a console warning). addForeignKey() throws outright. Only CHECK
constraints map to real syntax (and are validated on INSERT only). If you need
uniqueness or referential integrity, enforce it in your application, or model
"latest row per key" with a ReplacingMergeTree engine plus FINAL reads
(see Upserts).

No multi-statement transactions#

There is no BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK spanning more than one statement — only
a single INSERT is atomic (at the block level). startTransaction(),
commitTransaction(), and rollbackTransaction() all throw rather than
silently no-op, so application code can't mistakenly believe a rollback undid
earlier work. Don't wrap ClickHouse work in prorm.transaction(...). Savepoints
throw for the same reason.

UPDATE/DELETE are asynchronous background mutations#

buildUpdateQuery()/buildIncrementQuery() emit ALTER TABLE ... UPDATE, and
buildDeleteQuery() emits ALTER TABLE ... DELETE (or TRUNCATE TABLE when
deleting everything). Both return as soon as the mutation is scheduled — the
actual rewrite happens later, in the background, with progress visible only in
system.mutations. Do not expect affected rows to be immediately
gone/changed on the next SELECT; there is a window where reads still see the
pre-mutation data. Consequently, rowCount after a mutation is always 0 — it
reflects "rows this HTTP request returned," not "rows the mutation will touch."

Data types#

DataTypes map onto ClickHouse's native types:
ORM DataTypesClickHouse type
STRING, CHAR, TEXTString
INTEGERInt32 (UInt32 if unsigned)
BIGINTInt64 (UInt64 if unsigned)
FLOAT / DOUBLEFloat32 / Float64
DECIMAL(p, s)Decimal(p, s)
BOOLEANBool
DATEDateTime (DateTime64(p) when a precision is given)
DATEONLYDate
ENUM(...)Enum8 (≤127 values) or Enum16
UUIDUUID
INET / INET({version:6})IPv4 / IPv6
JSON / JSONBString (serialized JSON; query with JSON* functions)
ARRAY(T)Array(T)
TIME, BLOBString (no dedicated type)
You can always pass a raw ClickHouse type string as the column type (e.g.
'LowCardinality(String)', 'AggregateFunction(sum, UInt64)') when the
abstraction has no dedicated variant.
There is no native auto-increment. A column marked autoIncrement warns and
is ignored — use a DEFAULT generateUUIDv4() on a UUID column, or an
application-maintained counter, instead.

A gotcha: string-typed aggregates#

The HTTP driver reads results as JSONEachRow, and ClickHouse serializes 64-bit
integers (UInt64/Int64) as JSON strings to avoid precision loss. That
means count(), sum(), and any UInt64/Int64 column come back as strings,
not JS numbers:
const [row] = (await prorm.query('SELECT count() AS c FROM `Event`')).rows;
row.c;          // "10423"  <-- a string, not 10423
Number(row.c);  // 10423    <-- coerce explicitly before doing math
Coerce with Number(...)/BigInt(...) on the way out. Values that fit in
Float64/Int32 come back as JS numbers as expected.

Creating tables and MergeTree engines#

Beyond the plain MergeTree() default, the dialect can build and validate the
whole MergeTree family via a typed mergeTreeEngine option on the table
options. Each variant's required columns are checked against your schema before
any SQL reaches ClickHouse:
// ReplacingMergeTree: later inserts with the same ORDER BY key win on merge,
// keeping the row with the greatest `version`.
await prorm.getQueryInterface().createTable('users', {
  id:         { type: DataTypes.BIGINT, primaryKey: true },
  email:      { type: DataTypes.STRING, allowNull: false },
  updated_at: { type: DataTypes.DATE,   allowNull: false },
}, {
  mergeTreeEngine: { type: 'ReplacingMergeTree', version: 'updated_at' },
} as any);
Supported mergeTreeEngine variants:
{ type: 'MergeTree' }
{ type: 'ReplacingMergeTree', version?, isDeleted? } — isDeleted requires version.
{ type: 'SummingMergeTree', columns? } — columns must be numeric.
{ type: 'AggregatingMergeTree' } — requires at least one
AggregateFunction(...)/SimpleAggregateFunction(...) column.
{ type: 'CollapsingMergeTree', sign } — sign must be an Int8 column.
{ type: 'VersionedCollapsingMergeTree', sign, version } — sign Int8,
version numeric.
If a required column is missing or the wrong type, createTable() throws a
descriptive error instead of letting ClickHouse fail opaquely at insert/merge
time. A raw engine: 'GraphiteMergeTree(...)' string is also honored for
engines without a typed helper.
Other MergeTree table options (read as loosely-typed extension fields, since the
shared TableOptions doesn't declare them):
orderBy — the sorting key (string or string[]).
partitionBy — a raw PARTITION BY expression, e.g. 'toYYYYMM(created_at)'.
Partitions materialize automatically the first time a row with a given
partition value is inserted; you cannot pre-declare an empty one.
ttl — automatic expiry / tiered storage, e.g.
'created_at + INTERVAL 30 DAY' or '... TO VOLUME \'cold\''. Also available
per-column.
projections — inline PROJECTION name (SELECT ...) alternate layouts.

Inserts and streaming bulkCreate#

A single INSERT is the atomic unit in ClickHouse, and bulk loading is where it
shines. bulkInsert() (backing Model.bulkCreate()) does not build one
giant literal INSERT ... VALUES (...), (...) string — that risks blowing
ClickHouse's max query size and holds the whole batch in memory as one string.
Instead it uses the driver's native streaming insert() with JSONEachRow,
which chunks/streams the encoding:
await AnalyticsEvent.bulkCreate([
  { user_id: 1n, event_type: 'view',  created_at: new Date() },
  { user_id: 1n, event_type: 'click', created_at: new Date() },
  // ... hundreds of thousands of rows stream efficiently
]);
Date values are converted to ClickHouse's YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS[.fff] wire
format (not JS ISO-8601) so DateTime/DateTime64 columns accept them.

Upserts (ReplacingMergeTree + FINAL)#

ClickHouse has no synchronous UPSERT/ON CONFLICT/MERGE. The idiomatic
pattern is: insert into a ReplacingMergeTree table and let background merges
asynchronously drop older rows sharing the same ORDER BY key. buildUpsertQuery()
reflects this honestly — it only ever emits a plain INSERT (with a console
warning); conflictFields/updateOnDuplicate are accepted but have no effect.
The critical gotcha: those merges are asynchronous and eventual — they can
run minutes later, or effectively never on a lightly-written table. Until then,
duplicate rows for the same key coexist, and a plain SELECT can silently
return duplicates or a stale row, with no error. Pass final: true to
buildSelectQuery() to force merge-time dedup at query time:
// WRONG — may return the old row, the new row, or BOTH:
dialect.buildSelectQuery({ tableName: 'users' });
// SELECT * FROM `users`

// CORRECT — force ReplacingMergeTree dedup at read time:
dialect.buildSelectQuery({ tableName: 'users', final: true } as any);
// SELECT * FROM `users` FINAL
FINAL is opt-in on purpose: this dialect doesn't track per-table engine
metadata, so it can't know a table is a ReplacingMergeTree, and FINAL forces a
slower merge-on-read that doesn't scale well on tables with many parts. Ask for
it explicitly on every read that needs deduplicated/latest data. For very large
tables where FINAL is too slow, hand-write an argMax(...)/GROUP BY dedup
query instead — this dialect won't build one for you.

Analytics helpers#

ClickHouse's approximate aggregate functions are surfaced as typed helpers that
return a Literal (raw-SQL escape hatch) you drop straight into attributes:
const rows = await User.findAll({
  attributes: [
    dialect.uniqCombined('user_id', 'unique_users'), // approx distinct count
    dialect.quantile(0.99, 'latency_ms', 'p99'),      // approx p99
  ],
  group: ['day'],
} as any);
Available: uniq, uniqCombined([precision]), uniqHLL12, uniqExact,
quantile(level), quantiles(levels[]), quantileExact, quantileTDigest.
Quantile levels must be in [0, 1].
buildSelectQuery() also supports ARRAY JOIN/LEFT ARRAY JOIN (to unnest
Array columns into rows) via arrayJoin/leftArrayJoin options, and
SELECT * EXCEPT (...) via attributes.exclude.

Materialized views#

createMaterializedView(name, query, options) emits ClickHouse's real
insert-triggered CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW ... TO <target> AS SELECT .... Every
time a row lands in the source table(s) in query's FROM, ClickHouse runs the
query against just the new block and appends the result to the target. It is
not recomputed at read time, and does not backfill existing rows unless
you pass populate: true (which races with concurrent inserts, so it's opt-in).
Target either an existing table ({ to: 'rollup' }) or an implicit hidden one
({ engine, orderBy } without to).

Known limitations#

No transactions/savepoints — the methods throw (see above).
No enforced PK/UNIQUE/FK constraints — only CHECK; addForeignKey() throws.
No auto-increment — use generateUUIDv4() or an app counter.
No stored procedures — no procedural language; use materialized views or
CREATE FUNCTION UDFs. createStoredProcedure() throws.
No Foreign Data Wrappers — a Postgres concept; use ClickHouse table
functions (mysql(), postgresql(), s3()) directly. FDW methods throw.
No extensions — a Postgres concept; the methods throw.
Indexes are data-skipping indexes (minmax/set/bloom_filter), not
B-Trees — they let scans skip granules, not guarantee point-lookup speed.
No per-column CODEC(...), no Distributed/ON CLUSTER, no dictionaries,
no Kafka/S3 table engines, no SAMPLE clause
— out of scope for this
single-node-oriented dialect.
Query parameters are inlined as escaped literals — the HTTP client sends
one opaque SQL string per request, so replacements/bindings are substituted
as escaped literals (the same as SQLite/PostgreSQL do), not native binds.

See also#

clickhouse — the source-level walkthrough this guide
is grounded in.
clickhouse — the dialect implementation.

Capabilities#

Computed from the code — capabilitiesOf() (src/transaction-support.ts),
whereSupportOf() (src/query-builders/expression-render.ts),
sqlObjectCapabilitiesOf() (src/sql-objects/capabilities.ts) and the
builders — by the scratch test described in the
capability matrix.
Capabilityclickhouse
Transactions atomicyes
Savepointsno — a nested transaction() throws
Isolationup to SERIALIZABLE
Transaction modesread-only no; deferrable no; constraint deferral no
RETURNINGnot emitted; returning is accepted and ignored
Upserta plain INSERT: the engine has no conflict clause (see the page)
JSON columnString (JSONB → String)
Vector columnArray(Float32)
Array columnArray(Int32)
WHERE builder38 operator keys; $and/$or/$not; $exists: yes; $in subquery: yes; expression operands: yes
SQL objectsfamily clickhouse: triggers no; procedures no; functions expressionOnly; materialized views native; sequences no; enums inline; RLS no
StreamingqueryStream() present; LISTEN absent; createExtension() present

Testing#

tests/dialects/clickhouse.test.ts exercises the dialect with a mocked driver, so nothing touches a server. A live instance: prorm db up --dialect clickhouse (see Local databases).

Related reading#

Running clickhouse in Docker — get one going locally
All dialects — what each engine supports
Data types — how each type maps to this engine
Querying — how a FindOptions becomes SQL
Modified at 2026-10-04 00:40:16
Previous
Citus Dialect
Next
Cloud Authentication (`cloud-auth`)
Built with