Database (Prisma)

PostgreSQL is the primary data store. Prisma models live in **prisma/schema.prisma**; the generated client is imported from **@/lib/prisma**.

Domain groups

Identity and sessions (NextAuth)

**User** — core account row; includes admin and moderation fields (isAdmin, isSuspended, …).
**Account**, **Session**, **VerificationToken** — standard Auth.js tables.

These tables should rarely be written to manually except in seeds or admin tools.

Languages and visibility

**Language** — the central aggregate: name, slug, visibility (PRIVATE | UNLISTED | PUBLIC), owner, optional LanguageFamily, script settings, forking flags, metadata JSON for typology/wizard answers.
**LanguageCollaborator** — many-to-many between users and languages with CollaboratorRole (OWNER is represented implicitly via Language.ownerId; collaborators use EDITOR / VIEWER as appropriate to the app’s checks — see lib/auth-helpers.ts).

Rule of thumb: anything “can a stranger see this?” flows from Language.visibility plus collaborator rows.

Lexicon and morphology

**DictionaryEntry** — lemma, gloss, optional IPA/POS, tags JSON, etymology, optional links to **Paradigm** and cognate/proto lineage.
**ExampleSentence** — per-entry usage examples.
**Paradigm** — inflection or conjugation tables as structured JSON (slots).

Documentation and media

**GrammarPage** — rich text JSON per language, ordered within the language.
**Article** — blog-style posts with publish flags and timestamps.
**Text** — longer-form works (TextType enum) with optional uploaded files.

Families and reconstruction

**LanguageFamily** — hierarchical grouping (parentFamilyId) with optional **ProtoWord** rows for shared proto-vocabulary.

Social and engagement

Models such as **Favorite**, **Follow**, **Activity**, **Comment**, **UserBadge**, and related enums capture user engagement — inspect schema.prisma for the authoritative field list.

Administration

**AuditLog** — append-only record of sensitive admin actions.

Migrations workflow

# After editing schema.prisma
npm run db:migrate
# Name the migration descriptively when prompted, e.g. add_dictionary_tags_index

Never rewrite applied migration history on shared branches. If a migration was never pushed, migrate dev can reset; once on main, only forward migrations.

Seeding

npm run db:seed

Seeds are optional for minimal development but useful for UI work. Add seed data in prisma/seed.ts (or dedicated seed modules) rather than committing production user data.

JSON columns

Several models store TipTap JSON or tag arrays in Json fields. Treat these as versioned payloads: when you change editor schema, consider backward compatibility or one-off migrations to transform stored documents.

Developer documentation