Odoo migrations

On -u the ORM auto-applies additive, non-destructive schema changes. Anything that moves, renames, or reinterprets existing data it cannot infer — and its default for a renamed field is to drop the old column and create an empty new one. That silent data loss is what migration scripts prevent. Most "needs a migration?" mistakes are writing one that wasn't needed, or skipping one that was.

The rule: if existing rows must change shape or move, you write the migration; if you're only adding, let -u do it.

Targets Odoo 17/18, through Odoo 19 (current LTS). Cross-version deprecations: skills/odoo-introspect/references/version-matrix.md.

Does this need a migration?

Confirm the real column/field names and types first with odoo-introspect (MODEL=x … < scripts/model_brief.py → fields + types + stored/compute). For a rename or drop, also run the reverse-impact scan — odoo-ai refs <model> <field> — so the migration covers every dependent (computes, related fields, views, record rules, saved filters, server actions), not just the column you noticed. Then: