Authenticated API Endpoint to Restart / Toggle Database On & Off Remotely

[soufian3hm]

Feature Request: Authenticated API Endpoint to Restart / Toggle the Database On & Off

Problem

There are situations where a Supabase database becomes unresponsive or needs a restart, but the developer is away from their device or unable to access the dashboard at that moment. Currently, there is no programmatic way to trigger a database restart remotely via an API call.

This is a real pain point: if your database goes down at an inconvenient time, you either have to rush to your computer to log into the dashboard and restart it manually, or wait and let your users experience downtime.

Proposed Solution

Introduce a secure, authenticated Management API endpoint that allows project owners to:

• Restart the database remotely (e.g., POST /v1/projects/{ref}/database/restart)
• • Stop / Start the database (turn it on or off)
• • Optionally, configure auto-restart rules so the database can heal itself automatically when it goes down
    The endpoint should be:
• Protected by a strong authentication mechanism (e.g., a service role key or a dedicated management API key with restricted scopes)
• • Scoped only to the project owner / admin role
• • Rate-limited to prevent abuse
• • Logged/auditable so the user can see who triggered a restart and when

Why This Matters

• Developers often run hobby projects or small production apps without 24/7 monitoring
• • Being able to call a simple, locked-down API endpoint from a monitoring script, cron job, or health-check system means the database can restart itself automatically without human intervention
• • This drastically improves uptime and developer peace of mind

Alternatives Considered

• Using the Supabase Dashboard manually — not feasible when away from a device
• • Third-party uptime monitors — they can detect downtime but cannot trigger a restart on Supabase today

Additional Context

This feature would be especially valuable combined with a webhook or notification when the auto-restart fires, so developers stay informed. Many cloud providers (e.g., Railway, Render) offer similar restart/redeploy APIs and they are widely used for self-healing infrastructure.

Thank you for considering this — it would be a huge quality-of-life improvement for the Supabase community!