Configuring error formatting (Prisma ORM v6) (/docs/orm/v6/prisma-client/setup-and-configuration/error-formatting)

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This page explains how to configure the formatting of errors when using Prisma Client.

Location: ORM > v6 > Prisma Client > Setup and Configuration > Configuring error formatting

By default, Prisma Client uses ANSI escape characters to pretty print the error stack and give recommendations on how to fix a problem. While this is very useful when using Prisma Client from the terminal, in contexts like a GraphQL API, you only want the minimal error without any additional formatting.

This page explains how error formatting can be configured with Prisma Client.

There are 3 error formatting levels:

1. Pretty Error (default): Includes a full stack trace with colors, syntax highlighting of the code and extended error message with a possible solution for the problem.
2. Colorless Error: Same as pretty errors, without colors.
3. Minimal Error: The raw error message.

In order to configure these different error formatting levels, there are two options:

• Setting the config options via environment variables
• Providing the config options to the PrismaClient constructor

• NO_COLOR: If this env var is provided, colors are stripped from the error messages. Therefore you end up with a colorless error. The NO_COLOR environment variable is a standard described in the NO_COLOR specification.
• NODE_ENV=production: If the env var NODE_ENV is set to production, only the minimal error will be printed. This allows for easier digestion of logs in production environments.

Alternatively, use the PrismaClient errorFormat parameter to set the error format:

const prisma = new PrismaClient({
  errorFormat: "pretty",
});

• Custom model and field names: Learn how you can decouple the naming of Prisma models from database tables to improve the ergonomics of the generated Prisma Client API.
• Database connections: Databases connections
• Database polyfills: Prisma Client provides features that are not achievable with relational databases. These features are referred to as "polyfills" and explained on this page.
• Generating Prisma Client: This page explains how to generate Prisma Client. It also provides additional context on the generated client, typical workflows and Node.js configuration.
• Instantiating Prisma Client: How to create and use an instance of PrismaClient in your app.