drizzle.config tablesFilter not applied during generate — is there a way to exclude specific tables from migration generation?

[bylly1]

I have a table (mytable) that is partitioned via custom SQL and managed outside of drizzle-kit.
I want drizzle-kit to ignore it during generate so it doesn't emit CREATE TABLE notifications in migrations.

I tried tablesFilter: ['!mytable'] and ['*', '!mytable'] in drizzle.config.ts but the table still appears in the generated SQL.

My workaround was to remove the table's export from the schema index file, which works but feels wrong.

Question: Is there a supported way to exclude a specific table from migration generation (not just introspection)?
Is tablesFilter supposed to work for generate, or only for push/introspect?

drizzle-orm: 1.0.0-rc.x
drizzle-kit: 1.0.0-beta.x

[sueun-dev]

tablesFilter isn't doing anything to generate for me on drizzle-kit 1.0.0-rc.4. I tried ['!mytable'], ['*','!mytable'], and positive forms like ['keep'] and ['my*'], and the generated migration was identical each time, with mytable always created. So it's not a ! syntax issue, the filter just isn't applied to generate in the 1.0 rc, even though the docs list tablesFilter for generate. There are already open issues about tablesFilter not excluding tables on generate (e.g. #3309).

To exclude it reliably today, keep the partitioned table in its own module that the schema glob doesn't match, and import it from there for typed queries. Verified: with schema pointing only at the managed tables, generate emits those and skips the external one. generate only diffs what's reachable from the schema glob, so anything outside it stays invisible to migrations but still usable in code. Your current workaround is basically this, just make the separation deliberate.

[cooldev227]

Of course. Your observation is correct for the versions you listed.

tablesFilter is not used by drizzle-kit generate. The current Drizzle documentation explicitly scopes tablesFilter to push and pull (introspection), not generate.

generate works differently: it reads the TypeScript schema files, builds a schema snapshot, and diffs that against the previous migration snapshot.

So these won't exclude mytable from generate:
tablesFilter: ["!mytable"]
or
tablesFilter: ["*", "!mytable"]

This is also consistent with a June 2026 Drizzle discussion specifically describing the behavior in drizzle-orm@1.0.0-rc.x / drizzle-kit@1.0.0-beta.x; another user reported that positive filters had no effect on generate either.