Prisma CLI Error: "Missing required environment variable: DATABASE_URL" in NestJS Project (Even Though .env Is Set) [closed]

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I'm trying to use Prisma in my NestJS project. Prisma initializes correctly, but whenever I run any Prisma CLI command (e.g., npx prisma, npx prisma migrate dev, etc.), I get this error:

Failed to load config file "D:\coding\backend-development\nestjs-blog-api" as a TypeScript/JavaScript module.
Error: PrismaConfigEnvError: Missing required environment variable: DATABASE_URL

I already created a .env file in the project root and set the DATABASE_URL variable correctly. NestJS can read the environment variable without any issues — only Prisma CLI is failing.

My file structure:

project-root/
  prisma/
    schema.prisma
  .env
  package.json
  ...

.env contains:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:pass@localhost:5432/mydb?schema=public"

I also tried:

Restarting the terminal
Running Prisma commands with --schema
Checking for casing issues
Deleting and recreating .env

But the error still appears.

What am I missing? How can I fix Prisma not detecting the .env file?

how are you using .env file, include reproducible code

traynor
– traynor

2025-11-14 19:12:46 +00:00
Commented Nov 14 at 19:12 — traynor
– traynor, Commented Nov 14 at 19:12
you should include the version you are using

Rayan Allali
– Rayan Allali

2025-11-15 10:05:20 +00:00
Commented Nov 15 at 10:05 — Rayan Allali
– Rayan Allali, Commented Nov 15 at 10:05

Rayan Allali · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-15 09:49:02Z

1

I had the exact same issue when using Prisma v6+ , which introduced the new prisma.config.ts setup. prisma.config.ts was not able to read my .env file, so Prisma kept throwing:

Missing required environment variable: DATABASE_URL

The fix was to manually load the environment variables inside prisma.config.ts using dotenv.

Here is the working configuration:

import { defineConfig } from "prisma/config";
import { config } from "dotenv";

// Load .env before defining the config
config();

export default defineConfig({
  schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
  migrations: {
    path: "prisma/migrations",
  },
  engine: "classic",
  datasource: {
    url: process.env.DATABASE_URL || "",
  },
});

After adding config() at the top, Prisma CLI correctly picked up the DATABASE_URL environment variable and everything worked.

answered Nov 15 at 9:49

Rayan Allali

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