Setup

Germinator only needs two things - a folder of YAML files, and database connection parameters.

It's normal to make a folder called seeds, with different files for different categories of seeds.

seeds/
  -> users.yml
  -> posts.yml
  -> categories.yml

Germinator also needs details to connect to your database. The CLI has options for these.

npx germinator -c postgres -u admin --pass s3cur3 --port 5432

Germinator will read environment variables as well:

GERMINATOR_CLIENT / --client / -c: The type of database (postgres, sqlite3)

GERMINATOR_HOSTNAME / --hostname / -h: The host of your database (default "localhost")

GERMINATOR_PORT / --port / -p: Network port to access your database on

GERMINATOR_DATABASE / --database / -d: Name of the database that germinator will operate in

GERMINATOR_USER / --user / -u: User that germinator will connect as

GERMINATOR_PASS / --pass: Password for the connecting user

GERMINATOR_FILENAME / --filename / -o: SQLite database location

If you don't have Node.js, or want to isolate germinator, use the docker image.

Any important note!: Germinator will create 3 tables in your database! They are prefixed with germinator_*. These are used for tracking any seeds that you've made, so that germinator can keep them up to date. The two other tables are used for germinator's internal migrations.

If you really don't want this, use --noTracking. This will make it impossible for Germinator to synchronize values though.

Environment Specific Seeds

Germinator respects the NODE_ENV environment variable. You can mark whole seed files, or individual seeds, as environment-specific.

germinator: v2
synchronize: true
$env: ['development', 'qa']

entities: ...

In this example, germinator will only insert these seeds when NODE_ENV is development or qa.

This can be done per-entry as well:

germinator: v2
synchronize: true

entities:
  - TableA:
      $id: table-a-1
      $env: ['development', 'qa']

Naming Strategy

Germinator tries to use reasonable defaults, and assumes that you use SnakeCase as a naming strategy for tables and columns.

You can opt-out of this, per-file or per-entry.

germinator: v2
synchronize: true
namingStrategy: AsIs

entities:
  - odly_namedTable:
      $id: table-a-1
  - OtherTable:
      $id: table-b-1
      $namingStrategy: SnakeCase