[BUG]: `drizzle-kit push` fails if the target postgres database has a `jsonb` column with a default value

[ssg-saad]

Report hasn't been filed before.

• I have verified that the bug I'm about to report hasn't been filed before.

What version of drizzle-orm are you using?

0.43.1

What version of drizzle-kit are you using?

0.31.1

Other packages

No response

Describe the Bug

What is the undesired behavior?

> drizzle-kit push --strict --verbose

No config path provided, using default 'drizzle.config.ts'
Reading config file '/Users/<user>/<project>/drizzle.config.ts'
Using 'pg' driver for database querying
[⣽] Pulling schema from database...
{
  column11: {
    table_name: 'messages',
    column_name: 'attachments',
    is_nullable: 'NO',
    array_dimensions: 1,
    data_type: 'jsonb[]',
    seq_name: null,
    column_default: "'{}'",
    additional_dt: 'ARRAY',
    enum_name: '_jsonb',
    is_generated: 'NEVER',
    generation_expression: null,
    is_identity: 'NO',
    identity_generation: null,
    identity_start: null,
    identity_increment: null,
    identity_maximum: null,
    identity_minimum: null,
    identity_cycle: 'NO',
    type_schema: 'pg_catalog'
  },
  value: ''
}
<anonymous_script>:1


SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input
    at JSON.parse (<anonymous>)
    at /Users/<user>/<project>/node_modules/drizzle-kit/bin.cjs:19970:66
    at Array.map (<anonymous>)
    at defaultForColumn (/Users/<user>/<project>/node_modules/drizzle-kit/bin.cjs:19959:74)
    at /Users/<user>/<project>/node_modules/drizzle-kit/bin.cjs:19565:36
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5)

Node.js v23.10.0

The object output after "Pulling schema from database..." is from a console.log statement I added to drizzle-kit/bin.cjs to try to debug the issue. You can see it in the following code snippet:

      if (isArray3) {
        return `'{${columnDefaultAsString.slice(2, -2).split(/\s*,\s*/g).map((value) => {
          if (["integer", "smallint", "bigint", "double precision", "real"].includes(column11.data_type.slice(0, -2))) {
            return value;
          } else if (column11.data_type.startsWith("timestamp")) {
            return `${value}`;
          } else if (column11.data_type.slice(0, -2) === "interval") {
            return value.replaceAll('"', `"`);
          } else if (column11.data_type.slice(0, -2) === "boolean") {
            return value === "t" ? "true" : "false";
          } else if (["json", "jsonb"].includes(column11.data_type.slice(0, -2))) {
            console.log({column11, value}) // fails for this column and value
            return JSON.stringify(JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(JSON.parse(value)), null, 0));
          } else {
            return `"${value}"`;
          }
        }).join(",")}}'`;
      }

Table definition:

create table public.messages (
  id uuid not null default gen_random_uuid (),
  chat_id uuid null,
  content text not null,
  role public.role not null,
  created_at timestamp without time zone not null default now(),
  hidden boolean not null default false,
  attachments jsonb[] not null default '{}'::jsonb[],
  constraint messages_pkey primary key (id),
  constraint messages_chat_id_chats_id_fk foreign KEY (chat_id) references chats (id) on update CASCADE on delete CASCADE
) TABLESPACE pg_default;

What are the steps to reproduce it?

1. Create a table with a jsonb column that has default value of '{}'::jsonb[] on your target database
2. Run drizzle-kit push

What is the desired result?

It should correctly parse the default value

[VinayProgram]

I faced the same issue and was able to resolve it by setting up a custom migration adapter to handle raw SQL changes. Here's the approach I used to alter the column type safely and avoid runtime issues:

// migrations/001_change_description_to_jsonb.ts
import { sql } from "drizzle-orm";

const main = async (dbForMigrations) => {
  console.log("Running migration to change 'description' column type to jsonb...");
  await dbForMigrations.execute(sql`
    ALTER TABLE "table"
    ALTER COLUMN "description"
    SET DATA TYPE jsonb
    USING COALESCE(description::jsonb, '{}'::jsonb);
  `);
  console.log("Migration completed successfully.");
};

export default main;

Then, I created a simple script to run all .ts migrations using ts-node:

/* eslint-disable func-style */
/* eslint-disable no-undef */
/* eslint-disable @typescript-eslint/no-var-requires */
require('ts-node/register');
require('dotenv/config');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const { drizzle } = require('drizzle-orm/node-postgres');
const { Pool } = require('pg');
const { getSecrets } = require('./setup');

async function runMigrations() {
  const secrets = await getSecrets();

  const pool = new Pool({
    host: secrets.host,
    port: secrets.port,
    user: secrets.user,
    password: secrets.password,
    database: secrets.database,
    ssl: secrets.ssl ? { rejectUnauthorized: false } : false,
  });

  const dbForMigrations = drizzle({ client: pool });

  const migrationFiles = fs.readdirSync('./migrations').sort();

  for (const file of migrationFiles) {
    if (path.extname(file) === '.ts') {
      const migrationPath = path.join(__dirname, 'migrations', file);
      const migration = require(migrationPath);
      if (typeof migration.default === 'function') {
        await migration.default(dbForMigrations);
        console.log(`✅ Ran migration: ${file}`);
      }
    }
  }

  console.log('🎉 All migrations completed successfully.');
  await pool.end();
}

runMigrations().catch((err) => {
  console.error('❌ Migration failed:', err);
  process.exit(1);
});

This approach gives flexibility while keeping the migration logic clean and TypeScript-friendly.
Hope this helps someone else running into similar migration issues!

[mfferreira]

Would this be fixed with this PR? > #4459

I've managed to overcome this by basically hack the bin.cjs with:

if (isArray3) {
  return `'{${columnDefaultAsString.slice(2, -2).split(/\s*,\s*/g).map((value) => {
    if (["integer", "smallint", "bigint", "double precision", "real"].includes(column11.data_type.slice(0, -2))) {
      return value;
    } else if (column11.data_type.startsWith("timestamp")) {
      return `${value}`;
    } else if (column11.data_type.slice(0, -2) === "interval") {
      return value.replaceAll('"', `"`);
    } else if (column11.data_type.slice(0, -2) === "boolean") {
      return value === "t" ? "true" : "false";
    } else if (["json", "jsonb"].includes(column11.data_type.slice(0, -2))) {      
      // FIX: Handle PostgreSQL empty array literal
      if (columnDefaultAsString === "'{}'" && value === "") {
        // PostgreSQL '{}' represents an empty array, not empty JSON
        return '[]';
      }
      
      // FIX: Skip processing if value is empty
      if (!value || value.trim() === "") {
        return '[]';
      }
      
      try {
        return JSON.stringify(JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(JSON.parse(value)), null, 0));
      } catch (error) {
        // FIX: Graceful fallback for unparseable values
        console.warn(`Warning: Could not parse JSON default value: ${value}, falling back to empty array`);
        return '[]';
      }
    } else {
      return `"${value}"`;
    }
  }).join(",")}}'`;
}

[rohittiwari-dev]

Same issue is there with json() i tried Array[]::json[] or '[]'::jsob[] and so on it works when table doesn't exist even with jsonb but when i push the schema again then it doesn't work sometime it say Ray invalid token parsing json or parsing fails

[AndriiSherman]

Hey everyone!

I've created this message to send in a batch to all opened issues we have, just because there are a lot of them and I want to update all of you with our current work, why issues are not responded to, and the amount of work that has been done by our team over ~8 months.

I saw a lot of issues with suggestions on how to fix something while we were not responding – so thanks everyone. Also, thanks to everyone patiently waiting for a response from us and continuing to use Drizzle!

We currently have 4 major branches with a lot of work done. Each branch was handled by different devs and teams to make sure we could make all the changes in parallel.

---

First branch is drizzle-kit rewrite

All of the work can be found on the alternation-engine branch. Here is a PR with the work done: #4439

As you can see, it has 167k added lines of code and 67k removed, which means we've completely rewritten the drizzle-kit alternation engine, the way we handle diffs for each dialect, together with expanding our test suite from 600 tests to ~9k test units for all different types of actions you can do with kit. More importantly, we changed the migration folder structure and made commutative migrations, so you won't face complex conflicts on migrations when working in a team.

What's left here:

• We are finishing handling defaults for Postgres, the last being geometry (yes, we fixed the srid issue here as well).
• We are finishing commutative migrations for all dialects.
• We are finishing up the command, so the migration flow will be as simple as drizzle-kit up for you.

Where it brings us:

• We are getting drizzle-kit into a new good shape where we can call it drizzle-kit@1.0.0!

Timeline:

• We need ~2 weeks to finish all of the above and send this branch to beta for testing.

Second big branch is a complex one with several HUGE updates

• Bringing Relational Queries v2 finally live. We've done a lot of work here to actually make it faster than RQBv1 and much better from a DX point of view. But in implementing it, we had to make another big rewrite, so we completely rewrote the drizzle-orm type system, which made it much simpler and improved type performance by ~21.4x:

(types instantiations for 3300 lines production drizzle schema + 990 lines relations)

TS v5.8.3: 728.8k -> 34.1k
TS v5.9.2: 553.7k -> 25.4k

You can read more about it here.

What's left here:

• We have 1 issue with TS that is already in progress of being fixed. The issue and Post about fixing.

Where it brings us:

• We are getting drizzle-orm into a new good shape where we can call it drizzle-orm@1.0.0!

Breaking changes:

• We will have them, but we will have open channels for everyone building on top of drizzle types, so we can guide you through all the changes.

Third branch is adding support for CockroachDB and MSSQL dialects

Support for them is already in the alternation-engine branch and will be available together with the drizzle-kit rewrite.

Summary

All of the work we are doing is crucial and should be done sooner rather than later. We've received a lot of feedback and worked really hard to find the best strategies and decisions for API, DX, architecture, etc., so we can confidently mark it as v1 and be sure we can improve it and remain flexible for all the features you are asking for, while becoming even better for everyone building on top of the drizzle API as well.

We didn't want to stay with some legacy decisions and solutions we had, and instead wanted to shape Drizzle in a way that will be best looking ahead to 2025–2026 trends (v1 will get proper effect support, etc.).

We believe that all of the effort we've put in will boost Drizzle and benefit everyone using it.

Thanks everyone, as we said, we are here to stay for a long time to build a great tool together!

Timelines

We are hoping to get v1 for drizzle in beta this fall and same timeline for latest. Right after that we can go through all of the issues and PRs and resond everyone. v1 for drizzle should close ~70% of all the bug tickets we have, so on beta release we will start marking them as closed!

[AndriiSherman]

This issue has been fixed in the beta tag, which serves as the release candidate for Drizzle v1
It's available under drizzle-orm@beta and drizzle-kit@beta version.

For more info please check: https://orm.drizzle.team/docs/upgrade-v1