Data

Schema

The blueprint that defines what your data looks like — the tables, columns, and types.

A schema is the shape of your data: which tables exist, what columns each has, their types (text, number, timestamp), and the rules between them (a comment belongs to a post, an email must be unique). It's the architectural drawing for a house — decided up front, and changing it later means a real renovation, not a coat of paint. Because the schema constrains everything else, it's worth designing deliberately rather than letting an AI improvise tables as it goes. In code-first tools you write the schema as code and the ORM and migrations flow from it.