jpicklyk / migration-review

Migration Review Framework

Evaluate database migration safety for SQLite-specific constraints. This project uses Flyway migrations with SQLite, which has significant limitations compared to PostgreSQL/MySQL.

Step 1: Identify Schema Changes

Read the changed files and migration SQL to determine:

• New columns — ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN works in SQLite

• Modified columns — SQLite has NO ALTER COLUMN. Requires table recreation:

  1. Create new table with desired schema
  2. Copy data from old table
  3. Drop old table
  4. Rename new table
• New tables — check foreign key ordering in DirectDatabaseSchemaManager
• Index changes — CREATE INDEX / DROP INDEX work normally

Step 2: SQLite Constraint Check

Verify against known SQLite limitations:

• [ ] No ALTER COLUMN — if modifying existing columns, table recreation pattern is used
• [ ] No DROP COLUMN in older SQLite versions — check if the Docker image's SQLite supports it
• [ ] Foreign key constraints — new tables must be inserted in correct order in DirectDatabaseSchemaManager
• [ ] TEXT affinity — SQLite stores all strings as TEXT regardless of declared type
• [ ] No concurrent write transactions — migrations must be sequential

Step 3: Data Migration Strategy

For migrations that modify existing data:

• [ ] Existing rows handled — default values for new columns, or explicit data migration
• [ ] Null safety — new NOT NULL columns require a DEFAULT or data backfill
• [ ] Large table performance — SQLite locks the entire database during writes
• [ ] Runtime-dependent guarantees are probed, not assumed — see below

Guarantees that rest on engine runtime behavior need a multi-row probe. When the assessment claims an at-rest, security, or data-integrity guarantee that depends on a specific runtime/engine behavior (e.g. SQLite PRAGMA secure_delete, VACUUM page reuse, WAL checkpoint timing, FTS5 shadow-table residue), the assessment MUST specify a multi-row/multi-write empirical probe as part of the required test strategy — not a single-row assertion, which can read clean whether or not the mechanism works. It MUST NOT phrase the guarantee as absolute ("scrubbed", "removed") when only a probabilistic or partial mechanism is available ("reduces residue", "partial scrub"); once the probe exists, state the measured bound (e.g. "3–14 of 200 rows survive with the pragma, 200+ without").

Step 4: Flyway Integration

• [ ] Migration file follows naming: V{N}__{Description}.sql
• [ ] Version number is sequential (no gaps, no conflicts with existing migrations)
• [ ] Migration is idempotent where possible
• [ ] DirectDatabaseSchemaManager updated if new tables are added (insert in FK dependency order)

Step 5: Rollback Considerations

• [ ] Can the migration be reversed manually if needed?
• [ ] Is the schema change backward compatible with the previous application version?
• [ ] Docker volume data survives container restarts — migration is permanent

Output

Compose the migration-assessment note with findings from each step. Flag any SQLite-specific risks. Reference .claude/skills/spec-quality/references/project-concerns.md for additional codebase constraints.