I Built a Small Free Tool to Make SOQL Queries Less Painful

brendan lester — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 00:50:24 +0000

After spending a lot of time working with Salesforce data, one thing stood out quickly:

Editing and iterating on SOQL is far less flexible than it should be, especially compared to standard SQL tools.

My biggest frustration was the editor experience:

Working with multiple SOQL queries at once
Quickly switching between what I want to run
Iterating without constantly context-switching

So I built something to fix that — and I’m sharing it for free.

What this tool is

This is a lightweight SOQL query tool focused on fast iteration and editing, not on being a full IDE.

It’s written in Node.js and distributed as source:

Clone the repo
Run it locally in your Node environment
No Salesforce CLI required

You’ll need an External Client App configured in Salesforce.

Both OAuth 2.0 Web Server Flow (Authorization Code) and Client Credentials are supported.

After that, everything is pretty intuitive and covers ~99% of the SOQL work I need for analysis, debugging, and automation.

A better SOQL editing experience

Key features:

Multi-line editor with Ctrl+E to execute a query block
Multiple SOQL queries in a single workspace
Easy switching between SOQL and REST execution
Multiple Salesforce environments supported
Autocompletion
Sorting and filtering
Results exporting
Click an ID to view:
- Object JSON
- Record directly in Salesforce
No Salesforce CLI required
Secure authentication via OAuth 2.0 Web Server Flow

Why it’s free

I built this while working heavily with Salesforce data and automation (including Playforce, where SOQL shows up everywhere — analysis, debugging, and tests).

The tool already existed for my own use.

Sharing it just made sense.

If it saves you the same amount of time it’s saved me, that’s a win.

Who this is for

You’ll probably find this useful if you:

Write SOQL regularly
Want quick data extraction for analysis
Work with tests, scripts, or automation
Want less friction when shaping queries
Don’t want or need the complexity of VS Code or the Salesforce CLI

If you’re looking for a full Salesforce IDE replacement — this isn’t that.

Try it

👉 https://github.com/getplayforce/playforce-query

No signup. No login. Just clone it and use it.

Feedback welcome

This is intentionally small, but I’m open to improving it.

If you have ideas, edge cases, or things that would make SOQL editing smoother, I’d genuinely like to hear them.

And if it’s useful, feel free to share it with your team.