I built a fast, driver-less TUI for browsing PostgreSQL, with ER diagrams

riii111 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:05:11 +0000

If you live in the terminal and work with PostgreSQL daily, this is for you.

Why I built this

I've been bouncing between DBeaver, DataGrip, and various CLI tools for years. None of them hit the sweet spot I was looking for:

Zero-setup. I didn't want to install database drivers or configure connection pools. If you have psql, you should be good to go.
Minimal, vim-like UX. I wanted something like oil.nvim for databases. Something that appears when you need it and disappears when you don't. No permanent sidebar eating your screen real estate.
ER diagrams in the terminal. DBeaver and DataGrip can do this, but no TUI tool could. I wanted to stay in my terminal.

So I built sabiql.

riii111 / sabiql

A fast, driver-less TUI to browse, query, and edit PostgreSQL databases

sabiql

A fast, driver-less TUI to browse, query, and edit PostgreSQL databases — no drivers, no setup, just psql.

Concept

Vim-first · Safe by design · Oil-and-vinegar UI · Fast and lightweight

sabiql wraps your existing psql CLI. No Rust database drivers, no connection pools, no extra dependencies. Point it at your database and get a full-featured TUI. Your psql config, .pgpass, SSL setup all just work.

Inspired by oil.nvim's "oil and vinegar" philosophy: UI elements appear only when needed, never occupying your screen permanently. Vim-native keybindings (j/k, dd, /) let you navigate and edit without leaving your muscle memory.

Destructive operations are guarded. Inline edits and row deletions always show a preview modal before touching your data. Read-only mode (Ctrl+R) goes further — block all writes at the PostgreSQL session level with a single keystroke.

Built in Rust for minimal…

View on GitHub

After releasing it, orhun (a Ratatui maintainer) gave it a shout-out, it got listed on awesome-ratatui, and Postgres Weekly picked it up. Since then, I've been getting feature requests via issues and steadily shipping them.

Design philosophy

Drew Neil, the creator of vim-vinegar, once wrote:

"Split windows and the project drawer go together like oil and vinegar. I don't mean to say that you can combine them to create a delicious salad dressing. I mean that they don't mix well!"
— Drew Neil, Oil and vinegar

oil.nvim inherited this idea, treating file operations as regular buffers instead of a persistent sidebar.

sabiql takes a similar approach for databases. SQL modals, ER diagrams, and query results are independent overlays you summon and dismiss. When you need to dig deeper, toggle focus mode for a full-screen view. No mouse, no extra windows, just keyboard-driven context switches that stay out of your way.

Features

1. Connection Management

Enter your connection details on first launch. They're saved to ~/.config/sabiql/connections.toml, so you never have to type them again. Editing existing connections is supported too.

I recently added pg_service.conf support too, so you can reuse your existing service definitions.

Connection errors can be yanked to clipboard.

2. Inspector Pane (7 tabs of metadata)

Once connected, you get an Explorer (table list) and an Inspector pane with 7 tabs:

Tab	What it shows
Info	Owner, comment, estimated row count, schema
Cols	Column name, type, nullable, PK, default, comment
Idx	Index name, target columns, type (btree/hash/gin…), uniqueness
FK	Foreign key name, referenced table, columns
RLS	RLS enabled/disabled, policy name, command, PERMISSIVE/RESTRICTIVE
Trig	Trigger name, timing, event, function name
DDL	Auto-generated `CREATE TABLE` statement (yankable)

This is especially useful for quick security checks. You can instantly see which tables have RLS, who owns them, and whether a given role might bypass policies.

3. Inline Edit & Row Deletion

Edit cells in-place. Before execution, you get a preview of the exact SQL that will run so you can verify the change.

There are a couple of safety guards baked in. If there's no WHERE clause, execution is blocked so you don't accidentally mass-update. Same thing if the row can't be uniquely identified.

You can also do vim-style dd then :w for row deletion, with a preview confirmation step.

4. SQL Modal with Auto-Completion

Press s to open the SQL modal. It auto-completes table names, column names, and SQL keywords right inside the TUI, so you don't need a separate tool for ad-hoc queries.

5. ER Diagram Generation

I haven't seen another TUI database tool that does this.

Press e to generate an ER diagram and open it in your browser. You can also generate focused diagrams for specific tables only.

6. Vim-like Navigation & Command Palette

j/k for scrolling, g/G for jump to top/bottom
f for focus mode (expand any pane to full screen)
Ctrl+K for the command palette
? for the complete keybindings reference

7. Inherits Your Terminal Theme

sabiql follows your terminal's color scheme, transparency included.

Under the hood

The "no driver" approach means sabiql spawns psql as a subprocess for every query, including user-issued SELECTs and INSERTs. This keeps dependencies minimal, but spawn costs add up fast when you're bulk-fetching metadata at startup.

Here's what I did about it.

Prefetch optimization for auto-completion

The auto-completion engine needs metadata for all tables. My first implementation ran 6 queries per table, so for a database with 538 tables, that's 3,228 psql spawns just to populate completions.

I replaced that with a single lightweight query that fetches only the columns and foreign keys the completion engine actually uses, skipping indexes, RLS, and triggers entirely.

Spawn count dropped to 1/6, and the CPU spike went from 3-5 seconds down to under 100ms (tested on a 538-table database).

Two-tier caching

Explorer, SQL completion, and ER diagram generation all fetch metadata, so caching matters a lot on large databases. I split it into two tiers based on access patterns.

Tier 1 is a TTL cache (5 min) for the table list and schema info. Explorer and SQL completion initialization hit this. The data rarely changes, so a time-based expiry works well.

Tier 2 is an LRU cache for per-table column and FK details. SQL completion and ER diagram generation share this, so if completion already warmed up a table, ER diagram generation doesn't refetch it.

One exception: ER generation intentionally bypasses Tier 1 and always fetches fresh data. I want ER diagrams to always reflect the current state. To keep this efficient, it checks MD5 signatures from pg_catalog for change detection and only refreshes Tier 2 entries for tables that actually changed. So even right after an ALTER TABLE, the diagram is accurate without a full refetch.

Installation

# macOS / Linux
brew install riii111/sabiql/sabiql

# Cargo (crates.io)
cargo install sabiql

# Arch Linux (AUR)
paru -S sabiql  # or yay -S sabiql

# FreeBSD (ports)
cd /usr/ports/databases/sabiql/ && make install clean

# Install script
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riii111/sabiql/main/install.sh | sh

Run sabiql, enter your connection on first launch, and press ? for help.

You'll need the psql CLI (you probably already have it). Graphviz is optional, only needed for ER diagrams (brew install graphviz).

What's next

EXPLAIN analysis visualization
CASCADE delete visualization
Query history persistence
Cloud SQL / AlloyDB connection support
MySQL support (eventually)

Try it out

I use sabiql daily and maintain it actively. If you're a terminal-first developer who works with PostgreSQL, give it a spin.

Feedback, feature requests, and bug reports are very welcome on GitHub Issues.

riii111 / sabiql

A fast, driver-less TUI to browse, query, and edit PostgreSQL databases

sabiql

A fast, driver-less TUI to browse, query, and edit PostgreSQL databases — no drivers, no setup, just psql.

Concept

Vim-first · Safe by design · Oil-and-vinegar UI · Fast and lightweight

Built in Rust for minimal…

View on GitHub

If you found this useful, a ⭐ on the repo would mean a lot!

DEV Community: riii111

I built a fast, driver-less TUI for browsing PostgreSQL, with ER diagrams

Why I built this

riii111 / sabiql

A fast, driver-less TUI to browse, query, and edit PostgreSQL databases

sabiql

Concept

Design philosophy

Features

1. Connection Management

2. Inspector Pane (7 tabs of metadata)

3. Inline Edit & Row Deletion

4. SQL Modal with Auto-Completion

5. ER Diagram Generation

6. Vim-like Navigation & Command Palette

7. Inherits Your Terminal Theme

Under the hood

Prefetch optimization for auto-completion

Two-tier caching

Installation

What's next

Try it out

riii111 / sabiql

A fast, driver-less TUI to browse, query, and edit PostgreSQL databases

sabiql

Concept