# Database Migrations

Changed in version 21.0.0: (Yoga)

The database migration framework was changed from SQLAlchemy-Migrate to Alembic in the Yoga release. Previously there were three SQLAlchemy-Migrate repos, corresponding to different type of migration operation: the expand repo, the data migration repo, and the contract repo. There are now only two Alembic branches, the expand branch and the contract branch, and data migration operations have been folded into the former

Changed in version 24.0.0: (Bobcat)

Added support for auto-generation of migrations using the `keystone.common.sql.migrations.manage` script.

Starting with Newton, keystone supports upgrading both with and without downtime. In order to support this, there are two separate branches (all under `keystone/common/sql/migrations`): the expand and the contract branch.

expand

  For additive schema modifications and triggers to ensure data is kept in sync between the old and new schema until the point when there are no keystone instances running old code.

  May also contain data migrations to ensure new tables/columns are fully populated with data from the old schema.

contract

  Run after all old code versions have been upgraded to running the new code, so remove any old schema columns/tables that are not used by the new version of the code. Drop any triggers added in the expand phase.

A migration script must belong to one branch. If a migration has both additive and destruction operations, it must be split into two migrations scripts, one in each branch.

In order to support rolling upgrades, where two releases of keystone briefly operate side-by-side using the same database without downtime, each phase of the migration must adhere to following constraints:

Expand phase:

  Only additive schema changes, such as new columns, tables, indices, and triggers, and data insertion are allowed.

  Data modification or removal is not allowed.

  Triggers must be created to keep data in sync between the previous release and the next release. Data written by the previous release must be readable by both the previous release and the next release. Data written by the next release must be readable by both the next release and the previous release.

  In cases it is not possible for triggers to maintain data integrity across multiple schemas, writing data should be forbidden using triggers.

Contract phase:

  Only destructive schema changes, such as dropping or altering columns, tables, indices, and triggers, or data modification or removal are allowed.

  Triggers created during the expand phase must be dropped.

## Writing your own migrations

Because Keystone uses the expand-contract pattern for database migrations, it is not possible to use the standard `alembic` CLI tool. Instead, Keystone provides its own tool which provides a similar UX to the `alembic` tool but which auto-configures alembic (the library) for this pattern.

To create a new expand branch migration:

    $ tox -e venv -- python -m keystone.common.sql.migrations.manage \
        revision --expand -m "My expand migration"

To create a new contract branch migration:

    $ tox -e venv -- python -m keystone.common.sql.migrations.manage \
        revision --contract -m "My contract migration"

To auto-generate an expand and/or contract branch migration:

    $ tox -e venv -- python -m keystone.common.sql.migrations.manage \
        revision --autogenerate -m "My auto-generated migration"

Important

Because of discrepancies between the migrations and models which are yet to be ironed out, a number of columns are intentionally ignored. You can view these by inspecting the `env.py` file in `keystone/common/sql/migrations`.

To view the help page:

    python -m keystone.common.sql.migrations.manage --help

For information on how this tool works, refer to this blog post. For more information on writing migration scripts in general refer to the Alembic documentation.

this page last updated: 2026-06-11 21:52:50

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