fix: unique index recreation

[AlbertoCalvoRubio]

What does it do?

Fix #24421

Why is it needed?

Describe the issue you are solving.

• It uses the previous schema stored in the strapi_database_schema table to compare changes to not recreate indexes as the order of the columns array is the same. It also avoids doing a lot of queries to the database to know the current schema if it was already stored in the strapi_database_schema table.

How to test it?

Provide information about the environment and the path to verify the behaviour.

• It can be reproduced by following the steps in issue Unique indexes are recreated at startup when an unrelated migration is done #24421

Related issue(s)/PR(s)

Let us know if this is related to any issue/pull request

• fixes Unique indexes are recreated at startup when an unrelated migration is done #24421

[strapi-cla]

All committers have signed the CLA.

[vercel]

The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

Project	Deployment	Preview	Comments	Updated (UTC)
contributor-docs	Ready	Preview	Comment	Sep 23, 2025 6:56am

[alexandrebodin]

Hi, thanks for the PR.

Unfortunately we can't go with this approach quiet yet, we intentionnaly re-inspect the schema to manage cases where users manually add things in there DB or run operations outside Strapi.

If you added an option to switch this behavior on/off that would allows us to move forward with this :)

[AlbertoCalvoRubio]

Hi, thanks for the PR.

Unfortunately we can't go with this approach quiet yet, we intentionnaly re-inspect the schema to manage cases where users manually add things in there DB or run operations outside Strapi.

If you added an option to switch this behavior on/off that would allows us to move forward with this :)

I've added a strictSynchSchema database setting, similar to forceMigration or runMigration. It is enabled by default (current behaviour), and it can be disabled.
Also, I noticed that comparing the schemas, being both created from the Strapi metadata, needed a fix when comparing column types.
Let me know what you think of this approach, and then I will document this new option in the @strapi/documentation repository.

[alexandrebodin]

@AlbertoCalvoRubio Thanks that looks pretty good to me, nice catch on the bug.

@derrickmehaffy could you give this a try when you can ? I think this is a nice addition that we could make the default in the next major to reduce bootstrap time :)

[derrickmehaffy]

@AlbertoCalvoRubio Thanks that looks pretty good to me, nice catch on the bug.

@derrickmehaffy could you give this a try when you can ? I think this is a nice addition that we could make the default in the next major to reduce bootstrap time :)

Should we also port this to v5? Atm it targets v4

[derrickmehaffy]

Hey Alberto,

Can you quickly run prettier against this so that test can pass? Likewise would you be willing to open a PR for the documentation to add the option?

Specifically for the docs, the repo/branch for v4 is here: https://github.com/strapi/documentation/tree/v4

[derrickmehaffy]

Minus the doc requirement and the failing prettier test. Makes sense to me.

[alexandrebodin]

Member

We pbl have the same thing in v5 I don't recall us changing it so if you can make a PR against develop after that one get's merged that would be 💯

[AlbertoCalvoRubio]

Hey Alberto,

Can you quickly run prettier against this so that test can pass? Likewise would you be willing to open a PR for the documentation to add the option?

Specifically for the docs, the repo/branch for v4 is here: https://github.com/strapi/documentation/tree/v4

I've fixed the formatting issue and created a PR to the documentation repository strapi/documentation#2724.

[AlbertoCalvoRubio]

Member

We pbl have the same thing in v5 I don't recall us changing it so if you can make a PR against develop after that one get's merged that would be 💯

Sure, I will do the same for v5 once this gets merged. Thanks for the quick feedback!