fooododododo

Curious what your opinion on plpgsql functions is? Could easily solve your initial problem (if I follow). They don't seem to come up much though

Do they ever write plpgsql? If not why not?

Is everything in pgdump in the information schema?

Why not run Pg in a container if that's what's in prod?

Agree re trigger maintenance

Re orm, I'm strongly biased towards only using them when they (1) are absolutely necessary or provide some extreme benefit (2) are able to output the raw SQL to be executed on the db (3) the SQL to be executed is understood.

I've seen them used as a substitute for understanding SQL/databases and, personally, think that's a pretty bad idea.

Tracking triggers etc is pretty straightforward, just put them in a repo and apply them as part of a schema change. Testing them can be tricky, as unit tests aren't as likely to capture the locks/time that can be an issue when the database is under load. Tools like pgreplay can be helpful here.