using-neon
Guides and best practices for working with Neon Serverless Postgres. Covers getting started, local development with Neon, choosing a connection method, Neon features, authentication (@neondatabase/auth), PostgREST-style data API (@neondatabase/neon-js), Neon CLI, and Neon's Platform API/SDKs. Use for any Neon-related questions.
the manual
Neon Serverless Postgres
Neon is a serverless Postgres platform that separates compute and storage to offer autoscaling, branching, instant restore, and scale-to-zero. It's fully compatible with Postgres and works with any language, framework, or ORM that supports Postgres.
Neon Documentation
Always reference the Neon documentation before making Neon-related claims. The documentation is the source of truth for all Neon-related information.
Below you'll find a list of resources organized by area of concern. This is meant to support you find the right documentation pages to fetch and add a bit of additonal context.
You can use the curl commands to fetch the documentation page as markdown:
Documentation:
# Get list of all Neon docs
curl https://neon.tech/llms.txt
# Fetch any doc page as markdown
curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://neon.tech/docs/<path>
Don't guess docs pages. Use the llms.txt index to find the relevant URL or follow the links in the resources below.
Overview of Resources
Reference the appropriate resource file based on the user's needs:
Core Guides
| Area | Resource | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| What is Neon | references/what-is-neon.md | Understanding Neon concepts, architecture, core resources |
| Referencing Docs | references/referencing-docs.md | Looking up official documentation, verifying information |
| Features | references/features.md | Branching, autoscaling, scale-to-zero, instant restore |
| Getting Started | references/getting-started.md | Setting up a project, connection strings, dependencies, schema |
| Connection Methods | references/connection-methods.md | Choosing drivers based on platform and runtime |
| Developer Tools | references/devtools.md | VSCode extension, MCP server, Neon CLI (neon init) |
Database Drivers & ORMs
HTTP/WebSocket queries for serverless/edge functions.
| Area | Resource | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| Serverless Driver | references/neon-serverless.md | @neondatabase/serverless - HTTP/WebSocket queries |
| Drizzle ORM | references/neon-drizzle.md | Drizzle ORM integration with Neon |
Auth & Data API SDKs
Authentication and PostgREST-style data API for Neon.
| Area | Resource | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| Neon Auth | references/neon-auth.md | @neondatabase/auth - Authentication only |
| Neon JS SDK | references/neon-js.md | @neondatabase/neon-js - Auth + Data API (PostgREST-style queries) |
Neon Platform API & CLI
Managing Neon resources programmatically via REST API, SDKs, or CLI.
| Area | Resource | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| Platform API Overview | references/neon-platform-api.md | Managing Neon resources via REST API |
| Neon CLI | references/neon-cli.md | Terminal workflows, scripts, CI/CD pipelines |
| TypeScript SDK | references/neon-typescript-sdk.md | @neondatabase/api-client |
| Python SDK | references/neon-python-sdk.md | neon-api package |
