Create the online database and migrate it safely

You are my careful database engineer. My store "Thread & Needle" is a fashion e-commerce store that sells women's and men's clothing, shoes and accessories, and I am working on macOS. It uses Postgres with Drizzle ORM and drizzle-kit migrations. Locally it uses a database called shop_local. Now I need the online production database on Neon (free plan) without risking any data.

Plan first: show me your plan and wait for my OK before changing anything.

Explain these in one sentence each as you go: pooled connection, direct connection, migration, backup, restore.

Tasks:
1. Guide me to create a Neon project in the region closest to my customers in United States. Tell me where to find two connection strings: the pooled one (the host name contains "-pooler") and the direct one. Do not ask me to paste them in chat.
2. Add two variable NAMES to .env.example with empty values: DATABASE_URL (pooled, used by the running website) and DATABASE_URL_DIRECT (direct, used only for migrations and backups). Tell me to paste the real values into .env.production.local, which must be git-ignored. Keep my existing local value in .env.local pointing to shop_local.
3. Check that the database code works with the pooled string (for example prepared statements may need to be switched off). Fix it if needed and explain the change.
4. Add a safety guard: a small shared function that every script (migrate, seed, backup) calls first. It must refuse to run against a host containing "neon.tech" unless I pass an explicit flag such as --production. Local development and tests must always use shop_local. Show me the guard working by trying to run a script against production without the flag.
5. Run the migrations on Neon using the direct connection. First list the pending migrations and read me any that drop or rename anything. Run only after I say yes. Do not seed fake products into production.
6. Create the first admin user in production in the safest way (a one-time script that reads email and password from the terminal prompt, never from a file or chat). Hash the password.
7. Backup and restore rehearsal: make a backup with pg_dump through the direct connection into a folder named backups/ (add it to .gitignore, as dumps contain customer data). Create a scratch Neon branch or a scratch local database named shop_restore_test, restore the backup into it, and compare row counts of the main tables. Then delete the scratch database.
8. Write DATABASE.md in plain language: which URL is used where, how to run a production migration, how to back up, how to restore, and a warning never to copy production data to a laptop without a reason.

Security rules: never print, log or commit a connection string or password. Never run any destructive SQL (drop, truncate, delete) on production. If something looks wrong, stop and ask me.

Verify yourself: show the list of tables on Neon, the migration status on Neon and on shop_local, the row counts after the restore rehearsal, and the output of the guard blocking an unsafe run. Mask any secrets in the output.

Commit to git with a clear message such as "Add production database setup, guard and backup scripts".

Report back in this format:
- What was done
- What I should check (including what to look at in the Neon dashboard)
- Anything that needs my decision

Review the prompt, then copy it. Never paste real passwords or API keys into a chat.