jackc/tern

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1316 stars · 86 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Tern is a standalone SQL schema migration tool for PostgreSQL, usable as a CLI binary or Go library. It supports SQL and Go function migrations, SSH tunnels, variable interpolation, and a separate workflow for managing database code like functions and views.

Use cases

• run postgres schema migrations from the command line
• manage database functions and views as code
• migrate a postgres database in a CI pipeline
• apply sql migrations with variable interpolation
• run database migrations over an ssh tunnel
• embed a migration tool in a go application

When to choose

• you use PostgreSQL and prefer plain SQL migrations over ORM-based ones
• you need a lightweight standalone migrator or a Go library
• you need SSH tunneling or template-based config for migrations

When to avoid

• you need migrations for databases other than PostgreSQL
• you want declarative/diff-based schema management rather than ordered migration files

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

database cli developer-tools databases developer-tools backend windows go cli sql-migrations postgresql schema-migration database-migrations linux macos

Member repositories

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