drizzle-team/drizzle-orm · error · Error

You can't specify 'public' as schema name. Postgres is using

Error message

You can't specify 'public' as schema name. Postgres is using public schema by default. If you want to use 'public' schema, just use pgTable() instead of creating a schema

What it means

pgSchema (schema.ts:64) explicitly rejects the name 'public'. Postgres uses the public schema by default and Drizzle's pgTable() already targets it, so declaring pgSchema('public') would be redundant and would double-qualify identifiers. The fix is to skip schema creation and use pgTable() directly.

Source

Thrown at drizzle-orm/src/pg-core/schema.ts:66

		return pgSequenceWithSchema(name, options, this.schemaName);
	});

	getSQL(): SQL {
		return new SQL([sql.identifier(this.schemaName)]);
	}

	shouldOmitSQLParens(): boolean {
		return true;
	}
}

export function isPgSchema(obj: unknown): obj is PgSchema {
	return is(obj, PgSchema);
}

export function pgSchema<T extends string>(name: T) {
	if (name === 'public') {
		throw new Error(
			`You can't specify 'public' as schema name. Postgres is using public schema by default. If you want to use 'public' schema, just use pgTable() instead of creating a schema`,
		);
	}

	return new PgSchema(name);
}

View on GitHub (pinned to b7862528fd)

Solutions

1. Do not create a schema for 'public'; define those tables with pgTable() (no schema).
2. When programmatically generating schemas, skip or filter out the name 'public'.
3. Reserve pgSchema() for non-default namespaces only.

Example fix

// before
const publicSchema = pgSchema('public'); // error
export const users = publicSchema.table('users', { id: serial().primaryKey() });

// after
export const users = pgTable('users', { id: serial().primaryKey() });

function pgSchemaSafe<T extends string>(name: T) {
  if (name === 'public') {
    throw new Error(`Use pgTable() for the default 'public' schema instead of pgSchema('public')`);
  }
  return pgSchema(name);
}
// generate schemas only for non-public names
schemas.filter((s) => s !== 'public').forEach((s) => pgSchemaSafe(s));

function isNonPublicSchema(name: string): boolean {
  return name !== 'public';
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling pgSchema('public') and then using its .table() helper; auto-generating schema declarations from a list that includes 'public'; migrating a multi-schema setup that naively includes the default schema.

Common situations: Reflecting a database into Drizzle definitions and including 'public'; copy-pasting a schema block and forgetting to rename; tooling that wraps every schema name in pgSchema().

Related errors

• You have an empty array for "${name}" enum values
• Insert select error: selected fields are not the same or are
• You have an empty array for "${name}" enum values
• unsupported relation type
• Invalid relation "${relation.fieldName}" for table "${it.sch

AI-assisted analysis of drizzle-team/drizzle-orm@b7862528fd (2026-08-03). Data as JSON: /data/errors/315ff40dd947f2e5.json. Report an issue: GitHub.