Skeema

Skeema is a tool for managing MySQL and MariaDB schema changes in a declarative fashion using SQL CREATE statements. The Skeema CLI tool allows you to:

• Export CREATE statements from your DB and track them in an organized repo
  • Each table/proc/object is placed in its own file for easy browsing and reference
  • Use standard git commands to see history on a per-object basis
  • Provides vital context to AI tools, without wasteful intermediate ALTER migrations
• Auto-generate DDL by performing diffs between live DBs and your schema repo
  • Battle-tested from a decade of use, and trusted by some of the biggest names in tech, including GitHub itself
  • Skeema's internal safety mechanisms ensure that the generated DDL is absolutely always correct
• Manage multiple environments (e.g. dev, staging, prod) and keep them in sync with ease
• Configure use of online schema change tools, such as pt-online-schema-change or gh-ost, for performing non-disruptive ALTER TABLE
  • Skeema's configuration system even allows you to conditionally use OSC depending on table size, environment, schema, etc
• Apply 20+ configurable linter rules to proactively catch schema design problems and enforce company policies
  • Easily lint all objects in a dir/schema, or just modified objects in a diff
  • Perfect for CI use, with well-defined exit code behaviors

Skeema supports a pull-request-based workflow for schema change submission, review, and execution. This permits your team to manage schema changes in exactly the same way as you manage code changes.

Products and downloads

This repo is the free open source Community edition of the Skeema command-line tool. The Community edition supports management of tables and routines (procs/funcs). Builds are provided for Linux and MacOS.

The paid Premium edition of the Skeema CLI adds support for managing views, triggers, and events. It also includes a native Windows build, seed data management, enhanced TLS options for environments requiring client-side certs or CA verification, and many other improvements.

For download links and more information, visit skeema.io.

Documentation

Page | Description --- | --- Installation | How to install the Skeema CLI tool Getting started | Usage examples and screencasts Requirements | Supported database systems and required database privileges Features | How Skeema interacts with each type of database object, and various feature-specific topics Configuration guide | Option handling, config file format, and command-line option usage Command reference | Usage instructions for each command in the Skeema CLI Option reference | Detailed information on every Skeema option Schema change workflow | Recommended flow for pull-request-driven schema changes Pipelines and automation | Integrating Skeema into automated workflows Recipes | Using Skeema to achieve common schema management tasks FAQ | Frequently asked questions about Skeema

Credits

Created by @evanelias at Index Hint LLC, and developed with assistance from our many contributors and users.

Support for stored procedures and functions generously sponsored by Psyonix, creators of Rocket League.

Support for partitioned tables generously sponsored by Etsy.

License

Skeema Community Edition source code copyright 2026 Skeema LLC and the Skeema authors

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.