# prisma v8.0.0-rc.6

- Product: prisma (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/prisma)
- Vendor: prisma
- Date: 2026-08-25
- Version: v8.0.0-rc.6
- Original notes: https://github.com/prisma/prisma/releases/tag/v8.0.0-rc.6
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/prisma/releases/v8.0.0-rc.6
- Labels: Pre-release

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

---

- **changed** — PostgreSQL temporal columns now read as Temporal values or text instead of Date, with explicit codec representations: bare PSL spellings like Date, Timestamp, Timestamptz, Time select Temporal-backed codecs, while DateString, TimestampString, TimestamptzString, TimeString select text representations
- **removed** — Previous PostgreSQL temporal column codecs (pg/date@1, pg/timestamp@1, pg/timestamptz@1, pg/time@1, sql/timestamp@1, and field.timestamp()) are removed with no aliases
- **removed** — prisma orm init no longer installs agent skills via GitHub fetch, with agent-skills setup now belonging to the family-level prisma init command
- **removed** — The --skip-skills flag for prisma orm init is removed
- **removed** — The skill-install failure exit code 6 is retired
- **changed** — The engine peer dependency moves to @prisma/cli-engine@0.2.2
- **added** — The prisma-8 skill ships inside @prisma/orm-postgres, @prisma/orm-sqlite, and @prisma/orm-mongo npm tarballs with package name and version stamping
- **changed** — The CLI engine now evaluates prisma.config.ts correctly through pnpm symlink layouts that are not realpath'd
- **added** — The CLI engine exports its CI detector

#### v8.0.0-rc.6

PostgreSQL temporal columns move from `Date` to explicit `Temporal`-or-text representations, the prisma-8 agent skill ships inside the ORM packages a project installs, `prisma orm init` hands agent-skills setup to the family-level `prisma init`, and the toolchain releases against `@prisma/cli-engine@0.2.2` — the engine that evaluates `prisma.config.ts` correctly under pnpm symlink layouts.

The upgrade recipe for this hop: the [user recipe](https://github.com/prisma/prisma/tree/v8.0.0-rc.6/skills/prisma-8/upgrading/app/upgrades/8.0.0-rc.5-to-8.0.0-rc.6/).

##### Breaking changes

- **PostgreSQL temporal columns read as `Temporal` values or text, never `Date`** — each of `date`, `timestamp(p)`, `timestamptz(p)` and `time(p)` now has two representation-explicit codecs: a `Temporal`-backed one (the bare PSL spellings `Date`, `Timestamp`, `Timestamptz`, `Time` select it) and a text one (`DateString`, `TimestampString`, `TimestamptzString`, `TimeString`). The previous codecs (`pg/date@1`, `pg/timestamp@1`, `pg/timestamptz@1`, `pg/time@1`, `sql/timestamp@1` / `field.timestamp()`) are removed with no aliases. Pick a representation per column, re-emit every contract, and provide a global `Temporal` implementation (e.g. `import 'temporal-polyfill/full/global'`) wherever a Temporal-backed column is read. See the [migration recipe](https://github.com/prisma/prisma/tree/v8.0.0-rc.6/skills/prisma-8/upgrading/app/upgrades/8.0.0-rc.5-to-8.0.0-rc.6/). ([#30073](https://github.com/prisma/prisma/pull/30073))

  Before:

  ```prisma
  occurredAt Timestamptz  // read as Date
  ```

  After (read as `Temporal.Instant`):

  ```prisma
  occurredAt Timestamptz
  ```

  Or, to keep PostgreSQL's text unchanged:

  ```prisma
  occurredAt TimestamptzString
  ```

- **`prisma orm init` no longer installs agent skills** — the GitHub fetch (`npx skills add`) is removed and nothing replaces it inside `orm init`: agent-skills setup belongs to the family-level `prisma init` command, which init's next-steps now point to. The `--skip-skills` flag is removed with the behavior it opted out of, and the skill-install failure exit (code 6) is retired. Scaffolding is otherwise unchanged. ([#30097](https://github.com/prisma/prisma/pull/30097))
- **The engine peer moves to `@prisma/cli-engine@0.2.2`** — `@prisma/orm-toolchain` declares the unified CLI's engine as an exact peer, and this release peers 0.2.2 (up from 0.2.0). Installs assembled by the unified `prisma` CLI resolve one engine as before; a host that pins the engine itself must move to 0.2.2. The new engine evaluates `prisma.config.ts` through pnpm symlink layouts that are not realpath'd ([prisma/prisma-cli#222](https://github.com/prisma/prisma-cli/pull/222)) and exports its CI detector ([prisma/prisma-cli#224](https://github.com/prisma/prisma-cli/pull/224)).

##### Features

- **The prisma-8 skill travels in the npm tarballs** — `skills/prisma-8/` ships inside `@prisma/orm-postgres`, `@prisma/orm-sqlite`, and `@prisma/orm-mongo`, stamped with the package name and version so `prisma skills sync` can copy it into agent harness directories and detect staleness from the installed packages rather than fetching from GitHub. The two upgrade skills fold into the prisma-8 router as its "upgrading" branch. ([#30096](https://github.com/prisma/prisma/pull/30096))