Databases

Pomelo auto-provisions one database per workspace per template, using the shared service's admin credentials. You declare names with templates; Pomelo does the create/drop/seed dance.

Declare

Under a repo:

repos:
  api:
    databases:
      main: "{{branch.safe}}"          # primary DB
      test: "{{branch.safe}}_test"     # separate test DB
    env:
      DATABASE_URL: "postgres://{{shared.postgres.url}}/{{db.main}}"
      TEST_DATABASE_URL: "postgres://{{shared.postgres.url}}/{{db.test}}"

{{db.NAME}} resolves to the named entry above (session-prefixed) — names instead of positional indexes, so reordering the map never breaks a reference. The env vars produced for a workspace on branch feat/login:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:44800/myproject_feat_login
TEST_DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:44800/myproject_feat_login_test

Shared service credentials

The credentials come from the db_user / db_password fields on the shared service (well-known Postgres fills them in by default):

shared_services:
  postgres:
    db_user: postgres
    db_password: postgres

{{shared.postgres.url}} expands to user:pass@host:port.

Seed from main

New workspaces can inherit their databases from the main workspace's copies instead of building them from scratch:

repos:
  api:
    seed_from_main: true   # clone api's DBs from main (CREATE DATABASE … TEMPLATE)

Set up main once (migrate + seed), and each new workspace clones the prepared databases in seconds, with main's sample data — the repo's own seed is skipped. If a main DB is missing, Pomelo falls back to an empty create. See Workspace › Seed from main.

Manage

Reset databases from the workspace menu

Manage a workspace's databases from its menu in the app — create, drop, or reset all databases for that workspace at once. Databases are also created automatically when the workspace is created, and dropped when it's deleted.

Setup hooks

Use the repo-level setup: block for migrations / seeds that should run right after the workspace is created:

repos:
  api:
    setup:
      - bundle install
      - bundle exec rake db:migrate
      - bundle exec rake db:seed

These run after the worktree exists, the env file is written, and the databases have been created — so DATABASE_URL is set correctly.

Browsing data in the app

The Database tab (⌘4) inspects a branch's data without a separate DB client. Pomelo already knows the connection, so there's nothing to wire up:

• A tree of every per-branch database down to its tables (Postgres) and keyspaces (Redis).
• Click a table to open it as a data grid with WHERE / ORDER BY and paging; a record panel shows one row vertically and export streams the full result to CSV.
• A SQL console with syntax highlighting and schema-aware autocomplete.

Made for the checks you run constantly while coding — inspect a row, confirm a migration, tweak a query — right where you work, no separate client to wire up. The workspace's Claude agent can query the same databases over MCP while it works.