data-migration-safety

You can review database migrations for downtime risks by enforcing a safety checklist that evaluates lock durations, rollback feasibility, and batched backfill requirements. This process flags patterns like non-concurrent index creation to prevent outages and data integrity incidents.

A Postgres schema change becomes irreversible when it lacks a valid down migration or applies non-idempotent SQL constructs. You can avoid this by enforcing strict reversibility patterns and idempotence checks during your migration linting process.

To safely enable Supabase RLS policies, review new tables to verify RLS is active, ensure per-operation policies exist, and catch potential service-role bypass risks. This structured review prevents security regressions when modifying schema inputs.

The migration review process specifically flags unbatched backfills on large tables as high-risk operations. It recommends safer phased approaches and provides operational guidance to require batched backfills, preventing long lock durations and potential outages.

The best way to handle ACCESS EXCLUSIVE locks during column alterations is to apply structured migration linting that identifies these lock-duration risks. The review outputs actionable guidance recommending safer online approaches to avoid blocking table operations.

You need migration linting for regulated data and audit logs when schema changes implicate PHI compliance or audit-log integrity. The review applies special severity expectations and escalates findings to BLOCKING status to prevent compliance violations.