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Connect your changelogs using include or includeAll
Last updated: September 29, 2026
As your Liquibase project grows, you'll likely split your database changes into multiple changelog files for better organization. To deploy all of your changes together, you need to connect your individual changelogs using a root changelog file.
This guide shows you how to use the include or includeAll tags to bring your changelog files together.
Paths in include and includeAll resolve against Liquibase’s search path — so an include that works on your laptop can miss in CI if you run from a different directory. If files aren’t being found, see How does Liquibase find files?.
Before you begin
Make sure you've installed Liquibase and can run
liquibasefrom your command line.Connect your database to Liquibase. You'll need to follow the configuration guide for your specific database. You'll also create your first changelog during this process to test your database connection.
If you have an existing database, you'll also need to generate your changelog from your existing database.
Procedure
Know when to use include or include all.
Use
<include>to manually list specific changelog files in the exact order you want them applied. For example, if you have a flat directory structure with no nested folders you might use several include tags for each file.com example db changelog changelog-root.yaml changelog-index.sql changelog-procedure.sql changelog-table.sql changelog-view.sqlUse
<includeAll>to automatically include all changelog files from a directory, which Liquibase applies in alphabetical order. If you have a nested directory structure with folders nested inside folders you might use one includeAll tag to include every changelog under a particular directory. For example, if your implementation is set up like the example below, you would use include all on the folder changelog-indexes to include all the files under that folder, such as my-favorite-index.sql and that-other-index.sql.com example db changelog changelog-root.yaml changelog-indexes my-favorite-index.sql that-other-index.sql changelog-tables employees.sql customers.sql
Add include or includeAll tags to your root changelog
Example of using <include> to reference individual files:
Example of using <includeAll> to reference all files in a directory:
You can also use both include and includeAll in one changelog.
Next Steps
Now that your changelog structure has been established, you are ready to make and track changes with Liquibase.