Database Initialization Pattern

I've Googled countless ways... but I can't seem to find a clear answer. Is there a conventional name or design pattern for:

• Application starts
• Application detects presence (or absence) of a database/tables
• If absent, initializes needed tables for application
• On subsequent starts, if schema modifications are needed, they are performed

I suppose there are ORM frameworks that handle this automatically somehow, but I just can't seem to find the right words to use for this, particularly in the context of NodeJS and ExpressJS.

Perhaps I'm just not using the right terminology.