Picture this: Your mobile app is evolving quickly, with new features requiring changes to the local database. Your users expect seamless upgrades, and your stakeholders want new functionality delivered fast. The challenge becomes even trickier when you realize you need to update the app’s database schema without disrupting existing data or forcing users into error-prone migrations.

In this article, I’ll share a practical, automatic versioning approach I developed that simplifies database versioning and migration for mobile apps. This system lets developers focus on data models instead of manually scripting version changes, while making sure users’ data stays intact across updates.