golang-migrate/migrate · error

no schema

Error message

no schema

What it means

spanner.ErrNoSchema is returned by the Spanner driver's WithInstance, WithConnection, and Open when no schema name is configured. The driver uses the schema to qualify the migrations table; without it the DDL/DML it builds would be ambiguous. It signals missing or incomplete driver configuration.

Source

Thrown at database/spanner/spanner.go:38

	"github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/database"

	adminpb "cloud.google.com/go/spanner/admin/database/apiv1/databasepb"
	"google.golang.org/api/iterator"
)

func init() {
	db := Spanner{}
	database.Register("spanner", &db)
}

// DefaultMigrationsTable is used if no custom table is specified
const DefaultMigrationsTable = "SchemaMigrations"

// Driver errors
var (
	ErrNilConfig      = errors.New("no config")
	ErrNoDatabaseName = errors.New("no database name")
	ErrNoSchema       = errors.New("no schema")
	ErrDatabaseDirty  = errors.New("database is dirty")
	ErrLockHeld       = errors.New("unable to obtain lock")
	ErrLockNotHeld    = errors.New("unable to release already released lock")
)

// Config used for a Spanner instance
type Config struct {
	MigrationsTable string
	DatabaseName    string
	// Whether to parse the migration DDL with spansql before
	// running them towards Spanner.
	// Parsing outputs clean DDL statements such as reformatted
	// and void of comments.
	CleanStatements bool
}

// Spanner implements database.Driver for Google Cloud Spanner
type Spanner struct {

View on GitHub (pinned to 01a9643f14)

Solutions

1. Include the schema in the connection string/URL so the driver can parse it.
2. Populate the schema field in the *spanner.Config when constructing the driver manually.
3. Validate the schema value (non-empty) before calling the driver.

Example fix

// before
cfg := &spanner.Config{DatabaseName: "projects/p/instances/i/databases/d"}
// after
cfg := &spanner.Config{DatabaseName: "projects/p/instances/i/databases/d", SchemaName: "public"}

if cfg == nil || cfg.SchemaName == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("spanner schema name is required to qualify the migrations table")
}

func hasSchema(cfg *spanner.Config) bool { return cfg != nil && cfg.SchemaName != "" }

driver, err := spanner.WithInstance(client, cfg)
if errors.Is(err, spanner.ErrNoSchema) {
    return fmt.Errorf("schema missing in spanner config or URL")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Open/WithInstance called without the schema component in the spanner URL or with an empty Config schema field; a DSN template that dropped the schema segment.

Common situations: Copying a DSN pattern from another driver (e.g. postgres) that did not include the schema part, env substitution leaving the schema blank, multi-schema setups where the schema config was accidentally removed.

Related errors

• no config
• no database name
• no config
• no keyspace provided
• database is dirty

AI-assisted analysis of golang-migrate/migrate@01a9643f14 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/998f3f203f8b3ef9. Report an issue: GitHub.