How do you connect a database to a Next.js application?

You typically install a database client or an ORM library like Prisma, set up a connection string in your environment variables, and then call database queries directly inside server components, route handlers, or server actions, since these all run on the server where database credentials are safe.

// lib/db.js
import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';

export const db = new PrismaClient();

// app/page.js
import { db } from '@/lib/db';

export default async function Page() {
  const posts = await db.post.findMany();
  return <div>{posts.length} posts found</div>;
}