MySQL best practices

Apply these practices when writing or changing MySQL schemas, queries, migrations, or app DB access. Prefer project conventions when they conflict; discover them first (existing migrations, ORM config, charset/collation, naming).

Defaults

1. Prefer InnoDB and utf8mb4 (with an explicit collation the project already uses).
2. Prefer parameterized queries / bound parameters everywhere; never concatenate untrusted input into SQL.
3. Prefer small, reviewable migrations over large opaque dumps.
4. Prefer explicit transactions for multi-statement writes that must succeed or fail together.
5. Match the project's MySQL version features; do not require syntax the deployed server lacks.

Schema design