DynoTable

Relationships

In SQL you model relationships with foreign keys and resolve them with joins. In DynamoDB there are no joins, so the relationship lives in your key design instead. You shape partition and sort keys so related items sit in the same collection and come back in a single Query.

That sounds limiting until you see the patterns. One-to-many is the easy case; many-to-many needs a deliberate trick; and high-fan-out relationships have their own named pattern. This section walks the ladder.

0 of 6 readQuiz
One-to-Many Relationships in DynamoDB
How to model one-to-many relationships in DynamoDB so a parent and all its children come back in a single Query — worked through a SaaS workspace→projects schema.
Intermediate7 min read
Many-to-Many Relationships in DynamoDB
How to model many-to-many relationships in DynamoDB with an adjacency-list pattern — students ↔ courses, duplicated edge items, and a GSI to query both directions.
Intermediate7 min read
The DynamoDB Adjacency List Pattern
The DynamoDB adjacency list pattern — model a social follow graph as edge items in one table, then traverse both directions of the relationship with a single GSI.
Advanced8 min read
Composite Sort Keys in DynamoDB
Composite sort keys in DynamoDB — pack a hierarchy into one delimited sort key so a single Query reads a whole subtree, with a file-system tree example.
Intermediate5 min read
DynamoDB Reference Counts
How to maintain a DynamoDB reference count — a denormalized tally like a post's like-count — with a single transaction that stays correct under concurrency.
Intermediate5 min read
Knowledge checkTake the quiz
Check what you’ve learned in this section.

Start with one-to-many; it's the base every later pattern extends.

Try DynoTable to query these relationships against your own data.