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Jefferson Gonçalves
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Tabularis Duckdb Plugin

DuckDB Plugin integration for Tabularis

#tabularis-duckdb-plugin

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A DuckDB plugin for Tabularis, the lightweight database management tool.

This plugin enables Tabularis to work with DuckDB databases — both file-based and in-memory — providing full schema inspection, CRUD operations, view management, and DDL generation through a JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio interface.

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#Table of Contents

#Features

  • File-based & In-memory databases — Open .duckdb files or work with ephemeral in-memory databases.
  • Schema Inspection — Browse tables, columns, primary keys, foreign keys, and indexes.
  • View Management — Create, alter, drop, and inspect views with full metadata.
  • SQL Execution — Run any SQL query with automatic pagination for SELECT statements.
  • Inline Editing — Insert, update, and delete records directly from the Tabularis data grid.
  • DDL Generation — Generate CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE, CREATE INDEX, and FOREIGN KEY statements.
  • Schema Snapshot — Fetch full schema metadata (tables, columns, foreign keys) in a single call.
  • BLOB Support — Handle binary data with base64 encoding and file reference wire formats.
  • Complex Types — Full support for DuckDB-specific types: LIST, MAP, STRUCT, UNION, ENUM, and more.
  • Bundled DuckDB — Statically embeds DuckDB; no external dependencies required at runtime.
  • Cross-platform — Pre-built binaries for Linux (x86_64, aarch64), macOS (x86_64, aarch64), and Windows (x86_64).

#Supported DuckDB Data Types

Category Types
Numeric TINYINT, SMALLINT, INTEGER, BIGINT, HUGEINT, UTINYINT, USMALLINT, UINTEGER, UBIGINT, UHUGEINT, FLOAT, DOUBLE, DECIMAL
String VARCHAR, TEXT, UUID, ENUM
Date/Time DATE, TIME, TIMESTAMP, TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE, TIMESTAMP_NS, TIMESTAMP_MS, TIMESTAMP_S, TIME WITH TIME ZONE, INTERVAL
Binary BLOB
JSON JSON
Composite LIST, MAP, STRUCT, UNION
Other BOOLEAN, BIT

#Installation

#Automatic (via Tabularis)

If your version of Tabularis supports plugin management, the DuckDB plugin can be installed directly from the application.

#Manual Installation

  1. Download the latest release for your platform from the Releases page.
  2. Extract the archive.
  3. Copy tabularis-duckdb-plugin (or tabularis-duckdb-plugin.exe on Windows) and .tabularium into the Tabularis plugins directory:
OS Plugins Directory
Linux ~/.local/share/tabularis/plugins/duckdb/
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/com.debba.tabularis/plugins/duckdb/
Windows %APPDATA%\com.debba.tabularis\plugins\duckdb\
  1. Restart Tabularis.

#How It Works

The plugin is a standalone Rust binary that communicates with Tabularis through JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio:

  1. Tabularis spawns the plugin as a child process.
  2. Requests are sent as newline-delimited JSON-RPC messages to the plugin's stdin.
  3. Responses are written to stdout in the same format.

This architecture keeps the plugin fully isolated — no shared memory, no network ports, no external dependencies.

#Supported Operations

Method Description
test_connection Verify database connectivity
get_databases List databases
get_schemas List schemas
get_tables List tables in a schema
get_columns Get column metadata for a table
get_foreign_keys Get foreign key constraints
get_indexes Get indexes for a table
get_views List all views
get_view_definition Get SQL definition of a view
get_view_columns Get columns for a view
create_view Create a new view
alter_view Modify an existing view
drop_view Drop a view
execute_query Execute SQL with pagination support
insert_record Insert a new row
update_record Update a cell by primary key
delete_record Delete a row by primary key
get_schema_snapshot Full schema dump in one call
get_all_columns_batch All columns for all tables
get_all_foreign_keys_batch All foreign keys for all tables
get_create_table_sql Generate CREATE TABLE DDL
get_add_column_sql Generate ADD COLUMN DDL
get_alter_column_sql Generate ALTER COLUMN DDL
get_create_index_sql Generate CREATE INDEX DDL
get_create_foreign_key_sql Generate FOREIGN KEY DDL
drop_index Drop an index
drop_foreign_key Drop a foreign key constraint

#Building from Source

#Prerequisites

  • Rust (edition 2021)

#Build

cargo build --release

The binary will be located at target/release/tabularis-duckdb-plugin.

#Install Locally

A convenience script is provided to build and copy the plugin to the Tabularis plugins directory:

./sync.sh

#Development

#Testing the Plugin

Two development binaries are included for testing:

Direct DuckDB test:

cargo run --bin test

Simulated Tabularis integration test (spawns the plugin and sends JSON-RPC requests via stdio):

cargo run --bin test_plugin

#Tech Stack

  • Language: Rust (edition 2021)
  • Database: DuckDB v1.1.1 (bundled/statically linked)
  • Serialization: serde + serde_json
  • Protocol: JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio

#Changelog

#License

Apache License 2.0

New version available.