Java.DBMigrationTools.How do you apply a Liquibase migration from the command line?

✅ Short Answer

You apply a Liquibase migration using the update command from the CLI:

liquibase update

This command tells Liquibase to:

Connect to your database
Read the changelog file
Apply any changesets that haven’t been run yet

🔎 Step-by-Step Command Line Usage

1. ✅ Basic Example

liquibase \
  --changeLogFile=db/changelog.xml \
  --url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/mydb \
  --username=myuser \
  --password=mypass \
  update

This runs all unapplied changesets in changelog.xml.

2. ✅ Set Configuration Once (Optional)

Create a liquibase.properties file to avoid typing all parameters every time:

changeLogFile=db/changelog.xml
url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/mydb
username=myuser
password=mypass
driver=org.postgresql.Driver

Then you can run:

liquibase update

✅ Other Useful CLI Commands

Command	Description
`update`	Apply pending changesets
`updateCount 1`	Apply only the next 1 changeset
`updateSQL`	Show the SQL that would be executed
`status`	Show which changesets have not been applied
`rollbackCount 1`	Roll back the last 1 changeset
`tag my-release-v1`	Mark current DB state with a version tag
`history`	Show execution history of applied changes
`clearCheckSums`	Clear checksums if you edited a changeset

🧠 Behind the scenes

Liquibase checks the DATABASECHANGELOG table
Compares changesets against what’s already been applied
Runs only new changesets (unless runAlways or runOnChange is used)

📌 Key Takeaways

✅ Use the update command to apply migrations via the command line
✅ Prefer using a liquibase.properties file for reusability
✅ Useful for local dev, automation, or CI/CD pipelines
✅ Track progress and debug with commands like status, history, and updateSQL