mirrord-db-branching_skill

Overview

This skill helps you generate, validate, and troubleshoot mirrord.json configurations for database branching. It focuses on MySQL and PostgreSQL setups, copy modes, IAM authentication, and branch lifecycle management so you can safely create isolated database copies for development and testing.

How this skill works

It inspects natural-language requests or user-provided JSON and produces minimal, schema-compliant db_branches entries. The skill validates generated or submitted configs against the authoritative db_branches JSON Schema and provides clear troubleshooting hints and next steps, including the mandatory mirrord verify-config command. It also explains copy modes, IAM options, and branch management commands.

When to use it

• You need an isolated copy of a production DB for testing or migrations.
• You want to configure MySQL or PostgreSQL branching with specific copy modes.
• You must enable IAM authentication for Postgres (AWS RDS or GCP Cloud SQL).
• You need help validating or fixing an existing mirrord.json db_branches entry.
• You want guidance on Redis or MongoDB branching or local Redis runtime.

Best practices

• Always use an environment variable for the app connection string and reference it in connection.url.variable.
• Prefer copy.mode "empty" by default to keep branch creation fast and predictable.
• Set id when you want branch reuse between sessions; check ttl_secs to avoid expiry surprises.
• Run mirrord verify-config /path/to/config.json after any change.
• Use schema-only or filtered copies instead of full copies for large databases to reduce setup time.

Example use cases

• Create a MySQL branch for migration testing using copy.mode "schema" and your DATABASE_URL env var.
• Set up a Postgres branch that uses AWS RDS IAM authentication and ensures AWS credentials are available in the pod.
• Generate a filtered clone that copies only test users from a table for targeted integration tests.
• Provision a local Redis branch for development using container runtime and REDIS_URL env var.
• Validate and fix a supplied db_branches block to ensure correct types, required fields, and safe defaults.