SQLAlchemy is confusing. There’s a lot of “magic” that happens under the hood. There’s a spider web system of sessions, connections, engines, and models. Should I autocommit? What’s the difference between flushing and committing? How do I create the database in the first place?

A few days ago, I bit the bullet and sledged through the SQLAlchemy docs. I ran some experiments and did a lot of googling, and finally wrapped my head around SQLAlchemy (I think). In this article, I document my understanding of SQLAlchemy; mostly for my future self when I inevitably forget how it works.