How to manage schema migration for a single table in a large schema

October 29, 2025

Given a large database schema, how can I manage schema migration for a single table without affecting the rest of the schema?

Answer

Atlas supports the --include flag (or the env.include attribute) to scope operations to specific resources. If you need to manage the lifecycle of a single table (or a set of tables), use this flag to avoid changes to the rest of the schema.

For example, to manage the products table in a MySQL database:

atlas schema apply \
  --url "mysql://root:pass@:3308/db" \
  --to "file://schema.sql" \
  --dev-url "docker://mysql/8/dev" \
  --include "products"

If the connection URL is not bound to a schema, specify the schema name in the pattern:

atlas schema apply \
  --url "mysql://root:pass@:3308/" \
  --to "file://schema.sql" \
  --dev-url "docker://mysql/8" \
  --include "db.products"

This command will only apply changes related to the products table, leaving other tables untouched.

Wildcard Support

If the table exists in multiple schemas (tenants), you can use wildcards to include it across all schemas. For example:

atlas schema apply \
  --url "mysql://root:pass@:3308/" \
  --to "file://schema.sql" \
  --dev-url "docker://mysql/8" \
  --include "*.products"

Answer​

Answer