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

Snowflake Dialect

Overview#

Snowflake is a cloud-native, columnar, analytical
data warehouse. Storage and compute are separated: table data lives in
automatically managed micro-partitions in cloud object storage, while
queries run on virtual warehouses — elastic compute clusters you size,
suspend, and resume independently of the data.
PropertyValue
Dialect namesnowflake
Extendsnothing — implements Dialect directly
Driversnowflake-sdk
Cloud SDKnone
Default portnone — account identifier
Local runtimenone — hosted service only
That architecture shapes almost everything about this ORM's SnowflakeDialect
(src/dialects/snowflake/index.ts). It talks to Snowflake through the official
snowflake-sdk Node driver, and several concepts that are first-class in
row-oriented OLTP databases simply do not exist here:
No traditional B-tree indexes. Micro-partitioning and clustering keys
replace them. All index-shaped methods (addIndex, createIndex,
removeIndex, dropIndex, createFulltextIndex, createSpatialIndex) are
documented no-ops that emit a console warning rather than throwing, so
generic ORM code that calls them after createTable keeps working.
No native RETURNING. INSERT/UPDATE do not return the affected rows;
re-SELECT if you need them.
No user-facing table partitioning. createPartitionedTable and friends
throw a clear error pointing you at clustering keys instead.
Semi-structured data uses VARIANT/OBJECT/ARRAY with PARSE_JSON()
and :-path access — not JSON/JSONB.
Upserts use standard-SQL MERGE INTO.
Key facts (from src/dialects/snowflake/index.ts):
Dialect name is 'snowflake'; the driver library is 'snowflake-sdk'.
Identifiers are double-quoted (escapeId('my_col') → "my_col"), with
embedded quotes doubled.
Pagination is standard LIMIT/OFFSET (unlike Oracle/MSSQL's
OFFSET...FETCH-only style).

Quick start#

Install#

$ npm install ts-prorm-orm snowflake-sdk
$ pnpm add ts-prorm-orm snowflake-sdk
$ yarn add ts-prorm-orm snowflake-sdk
$ bun add ts-prorm-orm snowflake-sdk

Connect#

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

export const db = new Prorm({
  dialect: 'snowflake',
  database: 'ANALYTICS',
  username: 'ANALYST',
  password: process.env.SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD,
  dialectOptions: {
    account: 'myorg-myaccount',
    warehouse: 'COMPUTE_WH',
    schema: 'PUBLIC',
  },
});

Define a model#

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

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

await db.sync(); // CREATE TABLE — see Generated SQL below

Query#

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

await User.create({ 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({ 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' });
MERGE statement
upsert() also reads the row by primary key before and after the write, to return the instance.

Pagination#

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

Transaction#

await db.transaction(async (t) => {
  await User.create({ email: 'grace@example.com', name: 'Grace' }, { transaction: t });
  await User.update({ name: 'Grace Hopper' }, { where: { email: 'grace@example.com' }, transaction: t });
});
[!WARNING] No savepoints
Nested transactions need savepoints, and snowflake has none. Run the work in a single transaction, or restructure it so nothing nests.
Type mapping for the portable descriptors: STRING → VARCHAR(255), auto-increment INTEGER → NUMBER(38,0), BOOLEAN → BOOLEAN, DATE → TIMESTAMP_NTZ, UUID → VARCHAR(36), JSON → VARIANT. The type comparison lines the major engines up side by side.

Connection#

Snowflake connections are keyed by an account identifier rather than a
host/port, and typically name a warehouse, database, and schema.
import { Prorm } from 'ts-prorm-orm';

const db = new Prorm({
  dialect: 'snowflake',
  username: 'analyst',
  password: 's3cret',
  database: 'ANALYTICS',
  schema: 'PUBLIC',
  dialectOptions: {
    account: 'xy12345.us-east-1', // Snowflake account identifier
    warehouse: 'COMPUTE_WH', // compute cluster to activate on connect
    role: 'TRANSFORMER', // optional default role
  },
});

await db.connect();
Notes:
If warehouse is set, the dialect issues USE WAREHOUSE "COMPUTE_WH"
immediately after the connection is established — a warehouse must be active
(and resumed) for queries to run.
If schema is configured, quoteTable('users') qualifies unqualified table
names with it: "PUBLIC"."users".
Key-pair authentication is supported instead of password: pass
privateKey (PEM contents) or privateKeyPath, optionally with
privateKeyPass for an encrypted key. authenticator, application, and
clientSessionKeepAlive are also forwarded to the driver.

Connection retries#

query() wraps calls in a retry loop tuned for Snowflake's compute lifecycle.
The default match list retries connection errors plus transient warehouse
states
— warehouse is currently suspended, warehouse is resuming,
warehouse is being resized — but deliberately not the bare word
warehouse, so permanent errors like "warehouse does not exist" fail fast
instead of wasting retries. Override with the retry option.

Data types#

getDataTypeSql maps the ORM's type descriptors to Snowflake types. Raw string
types are passed through verbatim. Verified in
tests/dialects/snowflake.test.ts:
ORM type descriptorGenerated SQL
{ key: 'STRING' }VARCHAR(255)
{ key: 'STRING', length: 100 }VARCHAR(100)
{ key: 'TEXT' }VARCHAR
{ key: 'CHAR', length: 4 }CHAR(4)
{ key: 'INTEGER' }NUMBER(38,0)
{ key: 'BIGINT' }NUMBER(38,0)
{ key: 'DECIMAL', precision: 12, scale: 4 }NUMBER(12,4)
{ key: 'FLOAT' }FLOAT
{ key: 'DOUBLE' }DOUBLE
{ key: 'BOOLEAN' }BOOLEAN
{ key: 'DATE' }TIMESTAMP_NTZ
{ key: 'DATEONLY' }DATE
{ key: 'TIME' }TIME
{ key: 'JSON' } / { key: 'JSONB' }VARIANT
{ key: 'ARRAY' }ARRAY
{ key: 'UUID' }VARCHAR(36)
{ key: 'BLOB' }BINARY
{ key: 'GEOMETRY' } / { key: 'GEOGRAPHY' }GEOGRAPHY
Two notable approximations reflecting real Snowflake gaps:
INTEGER/BIGINT both become NUMBER(38,0) — Snowflake has a single
fixed-point numeric type; the aliases INT, INTEGER, BIGINT, etc. are all
synonyms for NUMBER(38,0).
ENUM becomes VARCHAR — there is no native ENUM; add a CHECK
constraint at the table level if you need value restriction.

Semi-structured data (VARIANT)#

JSON/JSONB map to VARIANT. When you escape() a plain object or array, it
is wrapped in PARSE_JSON(...) so it lands as semi-structured data:
db.dialect.escape({ tags: ['a', 'b'], active: true });
// PARSE_JSON('{"tags":["a","b"],"active":true}')
Query into a VARIANT column with buildJsonQuery, which uses Snowflake's
:-path access and :: casts instead of JSON_EXTRACT:
db.dialect.buildJsonQuery('data', 'active', true);
// { sql: '"data":active::STRING = ?', values: [true] }
Dotted paths become nested accessors ('address.city' →
"data":address.city::STRING).

Upsert — MERGE INTO#

Upserts compile to standard-SQL MERGE INTO, which Snowflake fully supports.
Unlike the MySQL-family dialects, conflictFields is required: it forms the
ON clause that identifies an existing row. Omitting it would match on all
columns and never find a row to update, so every upsert would insert a
duplicate — the dialect throws instead of silently doing that.
db.dialect.buildUpsertQuery(
  'users',
  { id: 1, name: 'Alice', email: 'a@x.io' },
  { conflictFields: ['id'] },
);
updateOnDuplicate restricts which columns the WHEN MATCHED branch updates:
db.dialect.buildUpsertQuery(
  'users',
  { id: 1, name: 'Alice', email: 'a@x.io' },
  { conflictFields: ['id'], updateOnDuplicate: ['name'] },
);
// ... WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET "name" = source."name" ...

CRUD#

Standard CRUD builders produce parameterized SQL with ? placeholders and
double-quoted identifiers. Verified in tests/dialects/snowflake.test.ts:
buildWhereClause supports the usual operator set ($eq, $ne, $gt,
$gte, $lt, $lte, $in, $notIn, $between, $like, $startsWith,
$endsWith, $substring, $isNull, and logical $and/$or/$not). Snowflake
case-insensitive matching uses its ILIKE(...) function form, so $iLike
emits ILIKE("col", ?) rather than a plain ILIKE operator.
buildUpdateQuery/buildDeleteQuery accept a limit option for
interface-compatibility but warn and ignore it — Snowflake's UPDATE/
DELETE do not support LIMIT.

Analytical SELECT extras#

buildSelectQuery accepts Snowflake-friendly analytical extensions:
QUALIFY — filter on window-function results without a wrapping
subquery, passed as a raw expression:
db.dialect.buildSelectQuery({
  tableName: 'sales',
  attributes: [
    'dept',
    'ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY dept ORDER BY amount DESC) AS rn',
  ],
  qualify: 'ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY dept ORDER BY amount DESC) = 1',
});
// SELECT dept, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (...) AS rn FROM "PUBLIC"."sales" QUALIFY ROW_NUMBER() OVER (...) = 1
Attributes containing whitespace or parentheses (window functions,
expr AS alias) are passed through unescaped so analytical SQL is not
mangled by identifier quoting.
cte — WITH [RECURSIVE] ... prefixes; if any entry is recursive the
whole clause is emitted as WITH RECURSIVE.
Time Travel — atTimestamp, atOffset, atStatement, or
beforeStatement append an AT(...)/BEFORE(...) clause after the table
reference, e.g. FROM "T" AT(OFFSET => -60).

Storage, clustering, and Snowflake-native objects#

Since there are no indexes, use a clustering key to influence
micro-partition pruning on large tables:
await db.dialect.setClusteringKey('events', ['event_date', 'customer_id']);
// ALTER TABLE "PUBLIC"."events" CLUSTER BY ("event_date", "customer_id")

await db.dialect.dropClusteringKey('events');
// ALTER TABLE "PUBLIC"."events" DROP CLUSTERING KEY
The dialect also wraps a broad set of Snowflake-native DDL. These are exposed
as dedicated methods (not standard-SQL shapes) because they have no analogue in
other dialects:
Zero-copy clone — cloneTable, cloneSchema, cloneDatabase
(CREATE ... CLONE ...), optionally combined with Time Travel.
Bulk load/unload — createFileFormat, createStage, copyInto
(COPY INTO TARGET_TABLE FROM @stage), unloadTo (COPY INTO @stage FROM TARGET_TABLE).
Warehouses — createWarehouse, alterWarehouse, dropWarehouse,
suspendWarehouse, resumeWarehouse.
Resource monitors — createResourceMonitor/alterResourceMonitor to cap
credit usage with NOTIFY/SUSPEND/SUSPEND_IMMEDIATE triggers.
Streams & tasks — createStream (CREATE STREAM ... ON TABLE) and
createTask for change tracking and scheduled DAGs.
Sequences — createSequence/nextSequenceValue via CREATE SEQUENCE /
NEXTVAL (note: MINVALUE/MAXVALUE/CYCLE are warned-and-ignored — not
supported by Snowflake sequences).
Stored procedures — createStoredProcedure emits
CREATE PROCEDURE ... AS $$ ... $$ with a configurable LANGUAGE
(SQL/JavaScript/Python/etc.); dropStoredProcedure targets a specific
overload via paramTypes.
Auto-increment columns use Snowflake's AUTOINCREMENT property
(describeTable also recognizes IDENTITY).

Not supported / throws#

These interface methods throw a clear error rather than emitting invalid SQL:
Extensions (createExtension, etc.) — PostgreSQL-only.
Foreign Data Wrappers (servers, user mappings, foreign tables) —
PostgreSQL-only; use external tables/stages/integrations instead.
Table partitioning — micro-partitioning is automatic; use a clustering
key.
User / role / privilege management builders — Snowflake has real
user/role management, but it is not implemented in this dialect, so these
throw "not implemented" rather than emitting incorrect SQL.
Row-level security (createSecurityPolicy) — use Snowflake row access
policies directly.
Savepoints are also unsupported: createSavepointSQL /
rollbackToSavepointSQL return inert SQL comments (and warn) rather than real
savepoint statements — use COMMIT/ROLLBACK for transactional control.
startTransaction/commitTransaction/rollbackTransaction emit plain
BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK.

Caveats / not-yet-verified#

SQL generation is unit-tested; the live-execution tests use a mocked
driver.
The build* builders and their SQL strings are asserted directly
in tests/dialects/snowflake.test.ts, and the "executes against a real
table" tests run against a stubbed snowflake-sdk connection, not a live
Snowflake account. End-to-end behavior against a real warehouse (that
MERGE, COPY INTO, CLONE, clustering keys, streams/tasks, and Time
Travel behave as intended) has not been exercised in this suite.
Index/fulltext/spatial methods are no-ops. They only warn; nothing is
created. Reach for a clustering key (or SEARCH OPTIMIZATION / Cortex Search
in real Snowflake) instead.
No RETURNING. After an insert/upsert, re-SELECT the row if you need
the stored values back.
ENUM is emulated as VARCHAR with no automatic CHECK constraint.

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.
Capabilitysnowflake
Transactions atomicyes
Savepointsno — a nested transaction() throws
Isolationup to READ COMMITTED
Transaction modesread-only no; deferrable no; constraint deferral no
RETURNINGnot emitted; returning is accepted and ignored
UpsertMERGE INTO … WHEN MATCHED / WHEN NOT MATCHED
JSON columnVARIANT (JSONB → VARIANT)
Vector columnVECTOR(FLOAT, 3)
Array columnARRAY
WHERE builder38 operator keys; $and/$or/$not; $exists: yes; $in subquery: yes; expression operands: yes
SQL objectsfamily snowflake: triggers no; procedures yes; functions expressionOnly; materialized views native; sequences yes; enums check; RLS no
StreamingqueryStream() present; LISTEN absent; createExtension() present

Related reading#

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
SingleStore Dialect
Next
Google Cloud Spanner Dialect
Built with