I ship schema changes in an offline-first Expo app.

I run migrations inside a single SQLite transaction.

I use PRAGMA user_version as my only “migration table”.

I added a tiny verifier to catch broken migrations fast.

Context

I’m building a React Native fitness app. Expo. SQLite. Offline-first.

Workouts must log without internet. Always.

Then the real problem hits. Schema changes.

I started with “I’ll just add a column”. Brutal.

One bad ALTER in production and you’ve got users stuck on an old schema, with data you can’t read, and no easy way to recover.

I tried keeping migrations in my head. That lasted 2 days.

Then I spent 4 hours debugging “no such column: sets.rpe”. Most of it was wrong.

What finally worked: PRAGMA user_version + transactional migrations + a startup verifier.

No ORM. No magic.

1) I treat migrations like app code.…