A balance is provided between automation of repetitive database creation and configuration efforts, on the one hand, and flexibility to depart from prior configurations, on the other hand, to assist developers with aspects of database initialization. An application domain includes data context instances, database connections, object models mapped by an object-relational mapper, and database initializers. Upon the first attempted runtime use of a particular database connection—data context instance—object model combination, a database initializer is invoked. Initializers may check to see if the database exists, (re)generate a database and schema based on the object model, determine whether the database is compatible with the current object model, delete the database and its schema, seed data, modify database indexes, and/or migrate an existing database, for example. A custom initializer can run developer-supplied code as desired to place the database in a known state for use by the application.