DEV Community: Tomasz

OpenSparrow v2.9 – GDPR Anonymization, Automation Emails, and a PHP 8.4 Refactor

Tomasz — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 18:11:44 +0000

OpenSparrow v2.9 is out. The headline feature is a full data anonymization module for GDPR compliance, alongside new automation actions, dashboard/calendar filtering, and a codebase modernized for PHP 8.4.

Data Anonymization (GDPR/EDPB)

New admin module — System → Anonymization. Define per-column rules (table, column, replacement value) to scrub PII on a schedule.

Four tabs — Rules (CRUD + run history), Schedule (manual/daily/weekly/monthly + Run Now), Suggestions (scans your schema's column names against a PII keyword dictionary and proposes rules), Dictionary (edit keywords, purge old logs)
Dry-run preview — see exactly how many rows each rule would affect via COUNT(*) with the rule's WHERE clause, before touching any data
EDPB compliance reports — every run writes a structured JSON report (linkability/inference/single-out risk assessment per rule) to a dedicated report table, viewable and downloadable from Run History
A companion CLI cron worker enforces the configured frequency window internally, so a simple daily OS scheduler entry covers all modes

Automations: email actions

The rule engine gains an email action — queue a message to be sent when a rule fires, with templated recipients/subject/body ({{ record.field }}, {{ old_record.field }}, {{ current_user.id }}, {{ today }}). Delivery runs async through the notifications cron with retry/attempt tracking and header-injection protection.

Also added: numeric/date comparison operators (>, <, >=, <=) and change-detection operators (changed, changed_from, changed_to) for writing more precise trigger conditions, plus a quick enable/disable toggle and a "Duplicate rule" button.

Dashboard & calendar filters

Dashboard — a global period filter (All time / Today / 7d / 30d / This month) reloads every widget; count/sum cards now show deltas vs. the previous period, and widgets can be exported to CSV directly from the dashboard
Calendar — a filter bar lets you toggle event sources on/off per configured table color

PHP 8.4 refactor

The whole backend was modernized for PHP 8.4: enums for user roles, readonly classes and constructor property promotion, #[\Override] attributes on interface implementations, json_validate(), first-class callable syntax, and hardened type hints across the DB/repository layer. CI now targets PHP 8.4/8.5.

Page bootstrapping was also consolidated — the repeated session/CSRF/CSP-header boilerplate that used to be copy-pasted at the top of every page now lives in a single os_page_bootstrap() / os_boot_app() helper.

Following this series?

OpenSparrow v2.8 – Kanban board, MySQL Gateway, and major security hardening

Websites

opensparrow.org
github.com/wrobeltomasz/OpenSparrow
demo.opensparrow.org

OpenSparrow v2.8 – Kanban board, MySQL Gateway, and major security hardening

Tomasz — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:01:04 +0000

OpenSparrow v2.8 is out. This one's focused on security, new visualization options, and better multi-database support.

Board (Kanban) view
New module — visualize your records as draggable cards organized into lanes. Each lane represents a status value (enum recommended). Drag a card to another lane and it updates instantly, with the change logged to the audit trail and restricted by record ownership.
Configure it from the new Board tab in the admin panel. The CRM demo now ships with a ready-made "Deals Board" grouped by Stage.

MySQL Gateway improvements
You can now connect to external MySQL databases and manage them alongside.
Add a MySQL table to the routing list, it auto-discovers columns from INFORMATION_SCHEMA and writes them to schema.json. New admin panel section lists all MySQL-routed tables with a per-table sync button.

Security hardening

Ownership guards — mass edit, duplicate, and delete now respect row ownership on restricted tables. Calendar drag-and-drop also enforces this.
Random setup password — the initial admin account gets a random 24-character password instead of hardcoded admin/admin
Session protection — storage/sessions/ now has .htaccess denying direct web access on Apache
File uploads security — uploads are now stored outside the web docroot (storage/files/), closing a potential exposure
Config import hardening — rejects empty archives, enforces 512 KB per-file limits, validates JSON properly

Infrastructure improvements

Web-root restructure — all web entry points now live in public/; backend code stays outside the docroot
Cypress test overhaul — 18 spec files, new seed endpoint, admin panel tests now fully active
CI/CD — added source integrity checks, version tag validation, PHP 8.1–8.3 syntax checks
Docs update — removed all references to default credentials, updated for random setup password

Small but useful

Linked record count badges now show on grid expand buttons — tells you how many related records exist before you click
Calendar API now queries only the visible month — better performance on large datasets
Login attempts table auto-purges rows older than 30 days

Following this series?

OpenSparrow v2.7 – Enhanced RAG, rebuilt admin UI, and Automations (beta)

OpenSparrow v2.6 – AI-powered search (RAG), bulk operations, and keyboard shortcuts

Websites

opensparrow.org
github.com/wrobeltomasz/OpenSparrow
demo.opensparrow.org

OpenSparrow v2.7 – Enhanced RAG, rebuilt admin UI, and Automations (beta)

Tomasz — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:11:04 +0000

v2.7 is out. This release focuses on AI improvements, a major admin UI overhaul, and the first iteration of workflow automations.

RAG enhancements
The AI module got a significant upgrade. Better document parsing, improved query handling, and now Ollama connections support SSL verification toggle — useful if you're running it locally with custom certificates.

Admin panel redesign
The admin UI has been completely rebuilt with:

Card-based editors for cleaner form layouts
Inline item panel for faster configuration
Refactored styles and improved visual hierarchy
Inner-tabs for better information organization

Automations (beta)
We're introducing workflow automations — still early, but usable. You can create if-then rules with:

OR group logic for complex conditions
3 action types to start
Run log to track executions
User picker for assignment actions

This is beta. Expect improvements in v2.8.

Security & quality

CSP nonces and XSS hardening across the admin panel
Unified session enforcement and role checks
Expanded Cypress E2E test suite to 12 spec files (~300 tests) — fixed 3 flaky tests

One-click deployment
Deploy to Render or Railway directly from GitHub — no manual server setup needed.

Other improvements

Server-side search with load-more pagination
Row cap for large tables (configurable)
Better CSV import with delimiter and encoding options
Improved malformed data parsing

Following this series?

OpenSparrow v2.6 – AI-powered search (RAG), bulk operations, and keyboard shortcuts

OpenSparrow v2.3 – visual admin panel, zero dependencies, now with ERD and M2M support

OpenSparrow – open-source admin panel builder, zero dependencies, v2.1 just dropped

Websites

opensparrow.org
github.com/wrobeltomasz/OpenSparrow
demo.opensparrow.org

What AI features would be useful in your own projects? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

OpenSparrow v2.6 – AI-powered search (RAG), bulk operations, and keyboard shortcuts

Tomasz — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:42:30 +0000

OpenSparrow v2.6 is out. This one's a big step forward — RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) integration, bulk grid operations, and a whole new UX layer.

RAG & AI integration

You can now upload documents and let users ask questions against them. The system retrieves relevant sections and generates answers using an LLM (supports Ollama locally or any OpenAI-compatible API).

What's new:

RAG Statistics tab in admin — tracks query tokens, response times, document matches, and recent queries
Multilingual auto-response — user questions are answered in their own UI language, no schema changes needed
20-language support — "Ask AI" panel fully translated, plus language dropdown in the test interface

Good for things like: knowledge base Q&A, customer support automation, or letting internal teams ask questions about their own data.

Grid & bulk operations

Mass Edit module — select rows via checkboxes, bulk edit fields, change owners, duplicate, or delete with one click
Keyboard shortcuts — arrow keys to navigate, Tab, Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+F to search, Ctrl-hold for help modal — works across all 20 languages
Quick Data Cleanup toolbar — find & replace with live preview, case sensitivity, accent-ignore. Editor-gated with audit trail.

Admin improvements

Renamed "RAG Knowledge Base" to "Centrum AI" (heading is translatable)
Migration Manager — tracks pending cleanup tasks after version upgrades, with automatic backups and audit trail
FK columns render as dropdowns in forms by default

Security & Quality

All bulk operations (mass edit, cleanup, delete) are editor-role gated
CSRF protection on every operation
Full audit trail — every change is logged
20 languages fully supported across all new modules
Fixed regressions in RAG API and CSV import

Following this series?

OpenSparrow v2.3 – visual admin panel, zero dependencies, now with ERD and M2M support

OpenSparrow – open-source admin panel builder, zero dependencies, v2.1 just dropped

Websites

opensparrow.org
github.com/wrobeltomasz/OpenSparrow
demo.opensparrow.org

What AI features would be useful in your own projects? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

OpenSparrow v2.3 – visual admin panel, zero dependencies, now with ERD and M2M support

Tomasz — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:49:14 +0000

Hey

OpenSparrow v2.3 is out. Quick recap if you missed earlier posts — it's an open-source admin panel framework built on PHP 8.1, PostgreSQL, and Vanilla JS. No npm, no Composer, no external libraries. You configure everything visually through /admin.

Live demo: demo.opensparrow.org

What's new

Schema Map (ERD) — visual diagram of your entire database with PNG export
Many-to-Many support — dedicated Builder tab, chip renderer in grids
Virtual computed columns — formula fields without touching the DB
Custom Views — save filtered/sorted perspectives per table
Record Ownership — track who handles what, full history
Performance tab — index advisor, slow query analyzer, bloat detection
Security hardening — 5 audit fixes, better session and input validation

Contributing

Looking for contributors — code, docs, or a short demo screencast.

opensparrow.org
github.com/wrobeltomasz/OpenSparrow

OpenSparrow – open-source admin panel builder, zero dependencies, v2.1 just dropped

Tomasz — Sun, 17 May 2026 18:43:36 +0000

OpenSparrow – open-source admin panel builder, zero dependencies, v2.1 just dropped

Hey everyone!

I want to share a project I've been building — OpenSparrow, an open-source visual admin panel framework.

The idea: connect it to a PostgreSQL database, and you get a fully working admin panel — tables, forms, dashboards, calendar, file uploads — configured entirely through a visual /admin interface. No JSON to write by hand.

The stack is minimalist: PHP 8.1+, PostgreSQL, Vanilla JS. No npm. No Composer. No jQuery. No external libraries on either side. Pure code only.

What you get out of the box:

Visual table builder — create columns, set types, foreign keys, validation rules — all in the UI.
Full CRUD with inline cell editing, searchable FK columns, and subtables.
Dashboard builder — stat cards, KPI cards, bar/pie charts, and data lists with live WHERE filters.
Calendar view + cron-based notifications.
Audit trail + optional record snapshots (full JSONB history of every change).
User roles: Admin, Editor, Viewer.
Security defaults: rate limiting, CSRF, session fingerprinting, HSTS.

LGPL v3 — free for commercial use.

Version 2.1 just released with a major UX overhaul, new modules, and security fixes. More on that in the next post.

Feedback and contributors are very welcome!