Getting started with Neon Data API

The Neon Data API offers a ready-to-use REST API for your Neon database that's compatible with PostgREST. You can interact with any table, view, or function using standard HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE). To simplify querying, use client libraries like postgrest-js, postgrest-py, or postgrest-go:

const { data } = await client.from('posts').select('*');

1. Enable the Data API

   Enable the Data API at the branch level for a single database.

   To get started, open the Data API page from the project sidebar and click Enable.

   

   Once enabled, you'll get:

   • A REST API endpoint for your branch
   • Neon Auth as your auth provider
   • Two Postgres roles: authenticated and anonymous (coming soon)
   • GRANT permissions applied to the authenticated role

   You can customize the auth provider and GRANTs later, or choose your own auth provider during setup.

   

2. Secure your Data API

   The Data API requires two layers of security:

   1. Database permissions (GRANT statements, already configured if you accepted the defaults)
   2. Row-Level Security (RLS) policies

   Database permissions

   If you accepted the defaults during setup, Neon automatically applied the necessary GRANT statements. If you skipped that step, you'll need to run these SQL statements manually:

   -- For existing tables
   GRANT SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE ON ALL TABLES
     IN SCHEMA public TO authenticated;
   
   -- For future tables
   ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public
     GRANT SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE ON TABLES TO authenticated;
   
   -- For sequences (for identity columns)
   GRANT USAGE, SELECT ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA public TO authenticated;
   
   -- Schema usage
   GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA public TO authenticated;

   Authentication required

   All requests to the Data API currently require authentication with a valid JWT token. Anonymous access is not supported yet, but is coming soon. In the near future, we'll provide public/long-lived tokens for anonymous users.

   Create a table with RLS

   Here's a sample posts table secured with RLS. The GRANT statements above give authenticated users access to all tables, which allows the Data API to work. RLS policies then control which specific rows each user can see and modify.

   For guidance on writing RLS policies, see our PostgreSQL RLS tutorial for the basics, or our recommended Drizzle RLS guide for a simpler approach.

   SQL

   Drizzle (crudPolicy)

   Drizzle (pgPolicy)

   CREATE TABLE "posts" (
   	"id" bigint GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
   	"userId" text DEFAULT (auth.user_id()) NOT NULL,
   	"content" text NOT NULL,
   	"published" boolean DEFAULT false NOT NULL
   );
   
   -- Enable RLS and create policies
   ALTER TABLE "posts" ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;
   
   -- When RLS is enabled, all operations are denied by default unless explicitly allowed by policies.
   
   CREATE POLICY "Allow authenticated users to read any post" ON "posts"
   AS PERMISSIVE FOR SELECT TO "authenticated"
   USING (true);
   
   CREATE POLICY "Allow authenticated users to insert their own posts" ON "posts"
   AS PERMISSIVE FOR INSERT TO "authenticated"
   WITH CHECK ((select auth.user_id() = "userId"));
   
   CREATE POLICY "Allow authenticated users to update their own posts" ON "posts"
   AS PERMISSIVE FOR UPDATE TO "authenticated"
   USING ((select auth.user_id() = "userId"))
   WITH CHECK ((select auth.user_id() = "userId"));
   
   CREATE POLICY "Allow authenticated users to delete their own posts" ON "posts"
   AS PERMISSIVE FOR DELETE TO "authenticated"
   USING ((select auth.user_id() = "userId"));

   The auth.user_id() function is provided by the Data API and extracts the user ID from JWT tokens, making it available to your RLS policies for enforcing per-user access control.

   With the posts table and its RLS policies in place, you can now securely query and modify posts using the Data API.

3. Query from your app

   The Neon Auth SDK (Stack Auth) manages JWT tokens automatically. Here's an example showing how to use it with postgrest-js:

   import { PostgrestClient } from '@supabase/postgrest-js';
   import { useUser } from '@stackframe/stack';
   
   // Example: fetch notes for the current user
   async function fetchUserNotes() {
     const user = useUser(); 
     if (!user) return null;
   
     const { accessToken } = await user.getAuthJson(); 
     const pg = new PostgrestClient(import.meta.env.VITE_DATA_API_URL, {
       headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${accessToken}` },
     });
   
     const { data, error } = await pg
       .from('notes')
       .select('id, title, created_at, owner_id, shared')
       .eq('owner_id', user.id) 
       .order('created_at', { ascending: false }); 
   
     return { data, error };
   }

   This example shows the key steps:

   1. Get the current user with useUser()
   2. Extract their JWT token with user.getAuthJson()
   3. Create a PostgrestClient with proper authentication headers
   4. Query the Data API with filtering (.eq('owner_id', user.id)) and ordering (.order('created_at', { ascending: false }))

   To see a complete, working example of an application built with the Data API, Neon Auth, and Postgres RLS, check out our demo note-taking app:

   • Full tutorial - Step-by-step guide to building the app
   • GitHub Repository
   • Live Demo

4. Refresh schema cache

   When you modify your database schema (adding tables, columns, or changing structure), the Data API needs to refresh its cache.

   • Console: go to Data API section and click Refresh schema cache
   • SQL: run NOTIFY pgrst, 'reload schema';