FAQ: How to easily explore DuckDB cache data

[aaronsteers]

As folks start wanting to dive into their cached datasets, a common question is how to directly query the DuckDB cache database.

Here are a few good ways I know of - please let us know in comments if you have another way that works for you!

Harlequin TUI

Harlequin (harlequin.sh) is a terminal UI (TUI) which allows you to easily query DuckDB in a visual way.

You can install it with pipx install harlequin and then run it by typing harlequin in your terminal.

You can run directly in one step using: pipx run harlequin ./path/to/my_cache.duckdb

DuckDB CLI

DuckDB has an official DuckDB CLI.

You can install with brew install duckdb or any of the methods described here and you can invoke by running duckdb at the terminal.

Jupyter/Colab Notebooks

You can use the Jupysql plugin to run %%sql magics directly in your notebook. See our Basic AirbyteLib Features Demo for more information.

VS Code SQLTools

If you have VS Code, you can install the SQLTools extension and the DuckDB SQLTools Driver. This turns VS Code into a database explorer which can then run SQL against DuckDB databases.