Neon Postgres

Neon Serverless Postgres

When to Use

Use this skill when you need guides and best practices for working with Neon Serverless Postgres. Covers setup, connection methods, branching, autoscaling, scale-to-zero, read replicas, connection pooling, Neon Auth, and the Neon CLI, MCP server, REST API, TypeScript SDK, and Python SDK. Use when users ask about...

Guide the user through any Neon-related task: setup, connections, branching, and advanced features. Deliver a working Neon connection, a completed feature configuration, or a specific answer from the official Neon docs.

Neon is a serverless Postgres platform that separates compute and storage to offer autoscaling, branching, instant restore, and scale-to-zero. It's fully compatible with Postgres and works with any language, framework, or ORM that supports Postgres.

Neon Documentation

The Neon documentation is the source of truth for all Neon-related information. Always verify claims against the official docs before responding. Neon features and APIs evolve, so prefer fetching current docs over relying on training data.

Fetching Docs as Markdown

Any Neon doc page can be fetched as markdown in two ways:

1. Append `.md` to the URL (simplest): https://neon.com/docs/introduction/branching.md
2. Request `text/markdown` on the standard URL: curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://neon.com/docs/introduction/branching

Both return the same markdown content. Use whichever method your tools support.

Finding the Right Page

The docs index lists every available page with its URL and a short description:

https://neon.com/docs/llms.txt

Common doc URLs are organized in the topic links below. If you need a page not listed here, search the docs index: https://neon.com/docs/llms.txt. Don't guess URLs.

What Is Neon

Use this for architecture explanations and terminology (organizations, projects, branches, endpoints) before giving implementation advice.

Link: https://neon.com/docs/introduction/architecture-overview.md

Getting Started

Use this section when guiding a user through first-time Neon setup.

Check Status Quo

Before starting setup, inspect the user's codebase and environment:

• Existing database connection code
• Existing Neon MCP server or Neon CLI configuration
• Existence of a .env file and DATABASE_URL environment variable
• Existing ORM (Prisma, Drizzle, TypeORM) configuration

Self-Driving Setup With Neon's CLI or MCP Server

Offer to inspect existing connected Neon projects or create new ones using the Neon CLI or MCP server. If neither is set up yet, run init with the --agent flag. Use npx -y to skip the package install prompt. Auth is handled automatically. If the user is not logged in, it opens their browser for OAuth and waits for completion before proceeding.

npx -y neon@latest init --agent <agent-name>

Supported --agent values: cursor, copilot, claude, claude-desktop, codex, opencode, cline, gemini-cli, goose, zed.

This installs the Neon extension (for Cursor/VS Code) or MCP server (for other agents), creates an API key, and adds the neon-postgres agent skill to the project.

If init is not suitable, the individual steps can be run non-interactively:

• Extension: cursor --install-extension databricks.neon-local-connect
• MCP server: npx -y add-mcp https://mcp.neon.tech/mcp -g -n Neon -y -a <agent-name>
• Agent skill: npx skills add neondatabase/agent-skills --skill neon-postgres --agent <agent-name> -y

For full CLI installation options, see https://neon.com/docs/reference/cli-install.md

Setup Flow

1. Select Organization and Project

Use MCP server or CLI to list organizations and projects. Let the user select an existing project or create a new one.

2. Get Connection String

Use MCP server or CLI to get the connection string. Store it in .env as DATABASE_URL. Read the file first before modifying to avoid overwriting existing values.

3. Pick Connection Method & Driver

Refer to the connection methods guide to pick the correct driver based on deployment platform: https://neon.com/docs/connect/choose-connection.md

4. User Authentication with Neon Auth (if needed)

Skip for CLI tools, scripts, or apps without user accounts. If the app needs auth: use MCP server provision_neon_auth tool, then see the auth overview (https://neon.com/docs/auth/overview.md) for setup. For auth + database queries, see the JavaScript SDK reference (https://neon.com/docs/reference/javascript-sdk.md).

5. ORM Setup (optional)

Check for existing ORM (Prisma, Drizzle, TypeORM). If none, ask if they want one. For Drizzle integration, see https://neon.com/docs/guides/drizzle.md.

6. Schema Setup

• Check for existing migration files or ORM schemas
• If none: offer to create an example schema or design one together

Resume Support

If resuming setup, check what's already configured (MCP connection, .env with DATABASE_URL, dependencies, schema) and continue from the next incomplete step.

Security Reminders

Remind users to use environment variables for credentials, never commit connection strings, and use least-privilege database roles.

Connection Methods & Drivers

Use this when you need to pick the correct transport and driver based on runtime constraints (TCP, HTTP, WebSocket, edge, serverless, long-running).

Link: https://neon.com/docs/connect/choose-connection.md

Recommended: Drizzle + the right driver for your runtime

Always pair Neon with an ORM such as Drizzle for easy schema management and migrations. Pick the driver based on how the runtime treats your code:

• Long-running or shared-runtime environments → node-postgres (`pg`). Neon Functions, and any host where the function runtime is shared across requests / runs on fluid compute (e.g. Vercel with Fluid compute), keep a module-scope process alive across many requests. Open a pg pool once at module scope and reuse it across requests.
• Fully isolated serverless (Lambda-style) → Neon's serverless driver (`@neondatabase/serverless`). Hosts like Netlify spin up a fresh, isolated instance per request, so a persistent TCP pool can't be reused; the serverless driver queries over HTTP and is built for this.

Neon Functions / Vercel / fluid compute — Drizzle + node-postgres:

import { drizzle } from "drizzle-orm/node-postgres";
import { Pool } from "pg";
import * as schema from "./schema";

// Created once at module scope; reused by every request the instance handles.
const pool = new Pool({ connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL, max: 5 });
const db = drizzle({ client: pool, schema });

On Vercel (Fluid compute) also attach the pool with attachDatabasePool from @vercel/functions, so the function runtime drains idle connections before an instance suspends:

import { drizzle } from "drizzle-orm/node-postgres";
import { Pool } from "pg";
import { attachDatabasePool } from "@vercel/functions";
import * as schema from "./schema";

const pool = new Pool({ connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL });
attachDatabasePool(pool); // let the Vercel runtime manage the pooled connections
const db = drizzle({ client: pool, schema });

Netlify and other fully-isolated serverless — Drizzle + Neon serverless driver:

import { drizzle } from "drizzle-orm/neon-http";
import { neon } from "@neondatabase/serverless";

const sql = neon(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);
const db = drizzle({ client: sql });

Serverless Driver

Use this for @neondatabase/serverless patterns, including HTTP queries, WebSocket transactions, and runtime-specific optimizations.

Link: https://neon.com/docs/serverless/serverless-driver.md

Neon JS SDK

Use this for combined Neon Auth + Data API workflows with PostgREST-style querying and typed client setup.

Link: https://neon.com/docs/reference/javascript-sdk.md