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Connect from TypeORM to Neon

Learn how to connect to Neon from TypeORM

TypeORM is an open-source ORM that lets you to manage and interact with your database. This guide covers the following topics:

Connect to Neon from TypeORM

To establish a basic connection from TypeORM to Neon, perform the following steps:

  1. Retrieve your Neon connection string. In the Connection Details widget on the Neon Dashboard, select a branch, a user, and the database you want to connect to. A connection string is constructed for you. Connection details widget The connection string includes the user name, password, hostname, and database name.

  2. Update the TypeORM's DataSource initialization in your application to the following:

    import { DataSource } from 'typeorm';
    
    export const AppDataSource = new DataSource({
      type: 'postgres',
      url: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
      ssl: true,
      entities: [
        /*list of entities*/
      ],
    });
  3. Add a DATABASE_URL variable to your .env file and set it to the Neon connection string that you copied in the previous step. We also recommend adding ?sslmode=require to the end of the connection string to ensure a secure connection.

    Your setting will appear similar to the following:

    DATABASE_URL="postgresql://[user]:[password]@[neon_hostname]/[dbname]?sslmode=require"

tip

TypeORM leverages a node-postgres Pool instance to connect to your Postgres database. Installing pg-native and setting the NODE_PG_FORCE_NATIVE environment variable to true switches the pg driver to pg-native, which, according to some users, produces noticeably faster response times.

Use connection pooling with TypeORM

Serverless functions can require a large number of database connections as demand increases. If you use serverless functions in your application, we recommend that you use a pooled Neon connection string, as shown:

# Pooled Neon connection string
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456-pooler.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname?sslmode=require"

A pooled Neon connection string adds -pooler to the endpoint ID, which tells Neon to use a pooled connection. You can add -pooler to your connection string manually or copy a pooled connection string from the Connection Details widget on the Neon Dashboard. Use the Pooled connection checkbox to add the -pooler suffix.

Connection timeouts

A connection timeout that occurs when connecting from TypeORM to Neon causes an error similar to the following:

Error: P1001: Can't reach database server at `ep-white-thunder-826300.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech`:`5432`
Please make sure your database server is running at `ep-white-thunder-826300.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech`:`5432`.

This error most likely means that the TypeORM query timed out before the Neon compute was activated.

A Neon compute has two main states: Active and Idle. Active means that the compute is currently running. If there is no query activity for 5 minutes, Neon places a compute into an idle state by default.

When you connect to an idle compute from TypeORM, Neon automatically activates it. Activation typically happens within a few seconds but added latency can result in a connection timeout. To address this issue, you can adjust your Neon connection string by adding a connect_timeout parameter. This parameter defines the maximum number of seconds to wait for a new connection to be opened. The default value is 5 seconds. A higher setting may provide the time required to avoid connection timeouts. For example:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://[user]:[password]@[neon_hostname]/[dbname]?sslmode=require&connect_timeout=10"

note

A connect_timeout setting of 0 means no timeout.

Need help?

Join our Discord Server to ask questions or see what others are doing with Neon. Users on paid plans can open a support ticket from the console. For more details, see Getting Support.

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