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-rw-r--r--doc/development/migration_style_guide.md6
1 files changed, 5 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/doc/development/migration_style_guide.md b/doc/development/migration_style_guide.md
index 0c326eeb851..6e3151a06dc 100644
--- a/doc/development/migration_style_guide.md
+++ b/doc/development/migration_style_guide.md
@@ -186,7 +186,11 @@ end
When adding a foreign-key constraint to either an existing or new
column remember to also add a index on the column.
-This is _required_ for all foreign-keys.
+This is _required_ for all foreign-keys, e.g. to support efficient cascading
+deletes: When a lot of rows in a table get deleted, the referenced records need
+to be deleted, too. The database has to look up corresponding records in the
+referenced table. Without an index, this will result in a sequential scan on the
+table which can take a long time.
Here's an example where we add a new column with a foreign key
constraint. Note it includes `index: true` to create an index for it.