Supabase Postgres Best Practices
Postgres best practices maintained by Supabase, for Postgres running anywhere. Load this skill BEFORE writing or changing anything that lives in a Postgres database: creating or altering tables and columns (including choosing column types), schema design, migrations and declarative schema files, RLS policies and the tests that verify them, indexes, triggers, database functions, queues and scheduled jobs (pg_cron, pgmq), vector/semantic search (pgvector), and restoring dumps (pg_restore) or importing data. Also load it when diagnosing slow queries, high CPU, timeouts, EXPLAIN plans, connection exhaustion, locking, bloat, or rows visible to the wrong user or tenant. This is not just a performance guide — schema, migration, security, and SQL authoring tasks need these rules too, even for a one-column change or a single query.
- Skill ID
- supabase/agent-skills/supabase-postgres-best-practices
- Publisher
- supabase
- Repository
- agent-skills
- Installs
- 1,765
- Files
- 36
- License
- MIT
- Synced
- Sep 16, 2026
Open any RiverX project, open the Skills panel in the chat, and search for this identifier. The files are fetched from the source repository at install time.
supabase/agent-skills/supabase-postgres-best-practicesInstalls these files- CHANGELOG.md
- SKILL.md
- references/_contributing.md
- references/_sections.md
- references/_template.md
- references/advanced-full-text-search.md
- references/advanced-jsonb-indexing.md
- references/conn-idle-timeout.md
- references/conn-limits.md
- references/conn-pooling.md
- references/conn-prepared-statements.md
- references/data-batch-inserts.md
- references/data-n-plus-one.md
- references/data-pagination.md
- references/data-upsert.md
- references/lock-advisory.md
- references/lock-deadlock-prevention.md
- references/lock-short-transactions.md
- references/lock-skip-locked.md
- references/monitor-explain-analyze.md
- references/monitor-pg-stat-statements.md
- references/monitor-vacuum-analyze.md
- references/query-composite-indexes.md
- references/query-covering-indexes.md
- references/query-index-types.md
- references/query-missing-indexes.md
- references/query-partial-indexes.md
- references/schema-constraints.md
- references/schema-data-types.md
- references/schema-foreign-key-indexes.md
- references/schema-lowercase-identifiers.md
- references/schema-partitioning.md
- references/schema-primary-keys.md
- references/security-privileges.md
- references/security-rls-basics.md
- references/security-rls-performance.md
What this skill tells the agent
Supabase Postgres Best Practices
Comprehensive performance optimization guide for Postgres, maintained by Supabase. Contains rules across 8 categories, prioritized by impact to guide automated query optimization and schema design.
When to Apply
Reference these guidelines when:
- Writing SQL queries or designing schemas
- Implementing indexes or query optimization
- Reviewing database performance issues
- Configuring connection pooling or scaling
- Optimizing for Postgres-specific features
- Working with Row-Level Security (RLS)
Rule Categories by Priority
| Priority | Category | Impact | Prefix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Query Performance | CRITICAL | query- |
| 2 | Connection Management | CRITICAL | conn- |
| 3 | Security & RLS | CRITICAL | security- |
| 4 | Schema Design | HIGH | schema- |
| 5 | Concurrency & Locking | MEDIUM-HIGH | lock- |
| 6 | Data Access Patterns | MEDIUM | data- |
| 7 | Monitoring & Diagnostics | LOW-MEDIUM | monitor- |
| 8 | Advanced Features | LOW | advanced- |
How to Use
Read individual rule files for detailed explanations and SQL examples:
references/query-missing-indexes.md
references/query-partial-indexes.md
references/_sections.mdEach rule file contains:
- Brief explanation of why it matters
- Incorrect SQL example with explanation
- Correct SQL example with explanation
- Optional EXPLAIN output or metrics
- Additional context and references
- Supabase-specific notes (when applicable)
References
- https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/
- https://supabase.com/docs
- https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Performance_Optimization
- https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/overview
- https://supabase.com/docs/guides/auth/row-level-security