ormDB + Kysely

What This Adapter Will Do

ormDB is a relational database engine written in Rust that replaces PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite as the actual database underneath your application. The planned @ormdb/kysely-adapter package will connect Kysely’s type-safe query builder to ormDB, letting you keep your existing query patterns while the database handles relation resolution natively.

Kysely builds SQL queries through a TypeScript-native builder API. With a SQL database, complex queries involving multiple joins result in large SQL statements that the database must parse and optimize. The ormDB adapter will translate Kysely’s builder output into ormDB’s native entity/relation protocol, enabling graph fetches that resolve related data in a single round-trip, eliminating N+1 queries.

Planned Setup

The adapter will follow the standard Kysely dialect pattern:

npm install @ormdb/kysely-adapter

import { Kysely } from 'kysely'
import { OrmDBDialect } from '@ormdb/kysely-adapter'
import type { Database } from './types'

const db = new Kysely<Database>({
  dialect: new OrmDBDialect({
    url: process.env.ORMDB_URL,
  }),
})

Standard queries will work through the type-safe builder:

const users = await db
  .selectFrom('users')
  .innerJoin('posts', 'posts.author_id', 'users.id')
  .innerJoin('comments', 'comments.post_id', 'posts.id')
  .select(['users.name', 'posts.title', 'comments.body'])
  .execute()

What Will Change, What Will Stay

Stays the same: Kysely’s type-safe query builder, selectFrom, insertInto, updateTable, deleteFrom, where clauses, orderBy, limit, and type inference from your database interface.

Changes: The database engine. Join patterns that represent entity relations become single-round-trip graph fetches. Migrations gain A-D safety grading. Vector search, geo search, full-text search, and change streams become available natively. Kysely with ormDB is a great choice for TypeScript projects.

Removed: Raw SQL via the sql template tag and db.executeQuery() with raw strings. All queries must use Kysely’s builder API.

Get Notified

The Kysely adapter is planned. In the meantime, try the Prisma or Drizzle adapters. To track development progress or register interest, visit the ormDB GitHub repository and join the community discussion.