About MSR
Learn about the history, philosophy, and vision behind Migration Script Runner.
Origin Story
The personal journey from a 2017 Firebase prototype to a modern migration ecosystem vision.
Part 1: The Story
- The anxiety of working with production data before launch
- Building the first solution and the relief it brought
- Six years of learning from other tools’ limitations
- The 2023 rediscovery: “Why reinvent the wheel?”
- Finding an unexpected collaborator in AI
- The vision for a migration ecosystem hub
Part 2: The Technical Evolution
- Code comparisons: 2017 JavaScript vs 2023 TypeScript
- Architectural transformation to database-agnostic design
- Key decisions and their reasoning
- What makes MSR different from traditional tools
Built from scar tissue: The fear of data corruption, rigid tools, and the realization that migration tools should bend to your needs, not the other way around.
Design Philosophy
The principles behind MSR’s architecture, explained without the history.
Core Principles:
- Database Agnosticism - One migration runner for all databases
- Polyglot Migrations - SQL and TypeScript/JavaScript in one project
- Built-in Safety Nets - Automatic backups before every run
- Programmable Architecture - Inject your services and business logic
- Custom Validation - Enforce your team’s rules automatically
- Library-First Design - Structured results, not process exits
- Execution Summary - Machine-readable output for CI/CD
- Cloud-Native Config - Environment variables following 12-factor principles
Design Trade-offs: Conscious choices between flexibility vs simplicity, type safety vs ease of use, and database-agnostic vs optimized.
These pages help you understand not just how MSR works, but why it’s built the way it is.