Connect with the Neon Vercel integration

This guide describes how to connect using the Neon Vercel Integration from the Vercel marketplace. The integration connects your Vercel project to a Neon database and enables creating a database branch for each preview deployment.

About the Neon Vercel integration

Vercel preview deployments enable teams to collaborate effectively by automatically creating an isolated, production-like environment for every commit. This allows changes to be previewed before they are merged into production.

However, when databases are involved, teams often use a single database containing dummy data for all previews deployments. This setup is not ideal for these reasons:

• If the shared database encounters an issue, so will all preview deployments.
• Changes to the shared database schema might break all previously created preview deployments, making it a productivity bottleneck.

Neon’s branching feature addresses these challenges. A branch is a copy-on-write clone of your data, so creating it only takes a few seconds. This makes it a scalable and cost-effective solution for preview deployments, enabling you to create a branch for each pull request.

When you push changes to the GitHub repository associated with your Vercel project, triggering a preview deployment, the integration automatically creates a database branch in Neon and connects it to your preview deployment by setting Vercel preview environment variables.

Add the Neon Vercel integration

This topic describes how to add the Neon Vercel integration to your Vercel project.

Prerequisites:

• A Vercel account.
• A Vercel project. If you do not have one, see Creating a project, in the Vercel documentation.
• The integration sets the PGHOST, PGUSER, PGDATABASE, PGPASSWORD, and DATABASE_URL environment variables for your Vercel production, development, and preview environments. Ensure that these variables do not already exist in your Vercel project settings. For more information, see Troubleshoot connection issues.

To add the integration:

1. Navigate to the Neon Vercel integrations page, and click Add integration.

2. Select a Vercel account to add the integration to.

3. Select the Vercel project to add the integration to.

4. Review the permissions required by the integration, and click Add Integration.

5. In the Integrate Neon dialog:

   1. Select a Vercel project.

   2. Select the Neon project, database, and role that Vercel will use to connect.

      The primary branch of your Neon project is preselected as the production branch.

      You have the option to create a database branch for your Vercel development environment. Selecting this option creates a branch named vercel-dev and sets Vercel development environment variables for it. The vercel-dev branch is a copy-on-write clone of your production branch that you can modify without affecting your production branch.

      When you finish making selections, click Continue.

   3. Confirm the integration settings. This allows the integration to:

      • Reset the database user's password, enabling the integration to configure the environment variables that require a password.
      • Set environment variables for your Vercel project's production, development, and preview environments.
      • Create database branches for preview deployments.
      • Create a development branch for your Vercel development environment (if you selected that option).

   

   Click Connect to confirm and proceed with the integration. If you encounter a connection error, see Troubleshoot connection issues.

   Once the settings are configured, you are presented with a Success! dialog where you can copy the new password for your database user.

   1. Click Done to complete the installation.

6. To view the results of the integration in Neon:

   1. Navigate to the Neon Console.
   2. Select the project you connected to.
   3. Select Branches. You will see the primary branch of your project. If you created a development branch, you will also see a vercel-dev branch.

7. To view the results of the integration in Vercel:

   1. Navigate to Vercel.
   2. Select the Vercel project you added the integration to.
   3. Select Settings > Environment Variables. You should see the PGHOST, PGUSER, PGDATABASE, PGPASSWORD, and DATABASE_URL variable settings added by the integration.

Use the Neon Vercel integration

After you add the Neon Vercel Integration to a Vercel project, Neon creates a database branch for each preview deployment. The branch is created when you push commits made on your local branch to your application's GitHub repository. To see the integration in action, follow these steps:

1. Create a branch in your local git repository.

   cd myapp
   git checkout -b myapp-update-1

2. Make changes to your application on the local branch.

3. Commit the changes. For example:

   git commit -a -m "Update my app"

4. Push your commit to the remote repository:

   git push

   Pushing the commit triggers the following actions:

   • The commit triggers a preview deployment in Vercel, as would occur without the Neon integration.
   • The integration creates a database branch in Neon. This branch is an isolated copy-on-write clone of your production branch, with its own dedicated compute endpoint. The branch is created with the same name as your git branch.
   • The integration sets Vercel preview environment variables to connect the your preview deployment to the new database branch.

Add the integration to another Vercel project

If you already added the Neon Vercel integration to a Vercel project and want to add it to another Vercel project, complete the following steps:

1. Ensure that the the Neon Vercel integration that you added previously has access to the Vercel project.
   1. On the Vercel Dashboard, select Integrations.
   2. Find the Neon Postgres integration, and select Manage.
   3. On the Neon Postgres integration page, select Manage Access and make sure that the Neon integration has access to the Vercel project. You can do so by granting access to All Projects or by selecting Specific Projects and choosing a Vercel project. If you previously granted access to all projects, no change is necessary.
   4. Click Save.
2. Navigate to this URL: https://vercel.com/integrations/neon/new.
3. Follow the prompts. When you reach the Integrate Neon dialog, select the Vercel project that you want to add the integration to. Vercel projects that are already integrated with Neon are identified as CONNECTED.
4. Complete the steps outlined in Add the Neon integration.

Troubleshoot connection issues

If the environment variables configured by the Neon integration already exist, you may encounter the following error due to an existing integration that sets one or more of the same environment variables.

Failed to set environment variables in Vercel. Please make sure that the following environment variables are not set: PGHOST, PGUSER, PGDATABASE, PGPASSWORD, DATABASE_URL

In this case, you can remove or rename the existing environment variables in your Vercel project settings and retry the Neon integration.

1. From the Vercel project page, select Settings.
2. Locate the environment variables required by the Neon integration and remove or rename them.

1. Try adding the Neon integration again. See Add the Neon integration.

Manage the Neon Vercel integration

To view integration permissions, manage integration access, or remove the Neon integration:

1. On the Vercel dashboard, select Settings > Integrations.
2. Find the Neon integration and select Manage.