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Configuring error formatting

By default, Prisma Client uses ANSI escape characters to pretty print the error stack and give recommendations on how to fix a problem. While this is very useful when using Prisma Client from the terminal, in contexts like a GraphQL API, you only want the minimal error without any additional formatting.

This page explains how error formatting can be configured with Prisma Client.

Formatting levels​

There are 3 error formatting levels:

  1. Pretty Error (default): Includes a full stack trace with colors, syntax highlighting of the code and extended error message with a possible solution for the problem.
  2. Colorless Error: Same as pretty errors, just without colors.
  3. Minimal Error: The raw error message.

In order to configure these different error formatting levels, there are two options:

  • Setting the config options via environment variables
  • Providing the config options to the PrismaClient constructor

Formatting via environment variables​

  • NO_COLOR: If this env var is provided, colors are stripped from the error messages. Therefore you end up with a colorless error. The NO_COLOR environment variable is a standard described here.
  • NODE_ENV=production: If the env var NODE_ENV is set to production, only the minimal error will be printed. This allows for easier digestion of logs in production environments.

Formatting via the PrismaClient constructor​

Alternatively, use the PrismaClient errorFormat parameter to set the error format:

const prisma = new PrismaClient({
  errorFormat: 'pretty',
})