Enable foreign key enforcement
Turn on FK checks for the current connection.
sqlANYsqliteforeign_keys
sql
PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON;Notes
Foreign key enforcement is connection-specific and should usually be enabled explicitly by applications.
SQLite PRAGMA and Administration Cheatsheet
High-signal PRAGMA commands for foreign keys, cache, synchronous settings, page size, temp storage, health checks, and general SQLite administration.
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Integrity and connection behavior
Enable important safety settings and inspect database health.
Check current foreign key setting
Read whether FK enforcement is enabled.
sqlANYsqliteforeign_keysinspect
sql
PRAGMA foreign_keys;Notes
Useful when debugging unexpected orphan rows or migration behavior.
sql
PRAGMA foreign_key_check;Notes
A great migration verification step.
sql
PRAGMA quick_check;Notes
Faster than a full integrity check and handy for routine validation.
Performance and file settings
Inspect or tune journaling, cache, and storage behavior.
sql
PRAGMA page_size;Notes
Page size is part of the file format and relevant for some performance and storage investigations.
Set cache size
Adjust the number of pages or kibibytes used for page cache.
sqlANYsqlitecache_sizememory
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PRAGMA cache_size = -20000;Notes
Negative values are interpreted as kibibytes, making sizing easier in some deployments.
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PRAGMA synchronous = NORMAL;Notes
A common setting in WAL mode when balancing performance and durability.
Control temporary storage location
Choose file-backed or memory temp storage.
sqlANYsqlitetemp_store
sql
PRAGMA temp_store = MEMORY;Notes
Can help workloads that build temporary btrees, sorts, or transient intermediate results.
Track application schema version
Read or set the user-defined schema version number.
sqlANYsqliteuser_versionmigrations
sql
PRAGMA user_version;
PRAGMA user_version = 12;Notes
A simple and popular migration bookkeeping mechanism in SQLite apps.
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