Apply a schema change to a live Azure SQL Database

The doctrine every migration tool inherits and none enforces, whether the change travels by project publish, pipeline step, ORM migration or hand written script.

Timings and log bytes measured 2026-08-28 on a live engine reporting SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') 5 and Edition SQL Azure, compatibility level 170, read committed snapshot isolation on, over a 2,000,000 row 230 MB table. Options checked against Microsoft Learn the same week; every statement below runs on Azure SQL Database.

The correction

An agent asked whether a migration is safe answers with expand and contract, adds IF NOT EXISTS guards, and calls the script idempotent. All three break here, silently: