alchemy-utils 0.1a0

# Release: alchemy-utils 0.1a0 Source: [https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/12/alchemy-utils/](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/12/alchemy-utils/) I've long pondered what a database agnostic version of my[sqlite\-utils](https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/)Python library and CLI utility might look like\. This morning \(literally a shower project\) I tasked Codex and GPT\-5\.6 Sol Ultra with building a prototype: > `Do a research spike to see what it would take to build a library with the same core API as SQLite\-utils \- in particular the insert and upsert and insert\_all and upsert\_all and create and update methods, and the table introspection stuff \- but backed by SQLalchemy so it works for multiple database engines` `Test against PostgreSQL and SQLite and duckdb` `Use ~/dev/sqlite\-utils for reference` `Create a git repo for this and commit and early and often \- use uv init to start the project \- use red/green TDD and pytest, see ~/dev/django\-sql\-dashboard for one idea as to how the PostgreSQL tests could work` It took[very few follow\-up prompts](https://gist.github.com/simonw/bd10e4886688e0fd1b833e4afaabf19e)to produce this project in a state good enough to release as an alpha\. Here's a one\-liner I can use to list the rows in a table in my local PostgreSQL copy of my blog's database: `uvx \-\-with 'alchemy\-utils\[postgresql\]' alchemy\-utils rows 'postgresql\+psycopg://simon@localhost:5432/simonwillisonblog' redirects\_redirect` The output from that starts like this: ``` [ { "id": 2328, "domain": "simonwillison.net", "path": "2020/May/21/apple-photos-sqlite/", "target": "/2020/May/21/dogsheep-photos/", "created": "2020-05-21T13:03:46.591692-07:00" }, { "id": 3, "domain": "feeds.simonwillison.net", "path": "swn-links", "target": "https://simonwillison.net/atom/links/", "created": "2017-10-01T14:12:54.820729-07:00" } ``` Or if you'd like a DuckDB database with[every tree in San Francisco](https://github.com/simonw/sf-tree-history/blob/main/Street_Tree_List.csv), schema created automatically to match the file: `curl 'https://raw\.githubusercontent\.com/simonw/sf\-tree\-history/refs/heads/main/Street\_Tree\_List\.csv' \| uvx \-\-with 'alchemy\-utils\[duckdb\]' alchemy\-utils insert 'duckdb:////tmp/trees\.db' trees \- \-\-csv` \(That one took nearly an hour the first time I ran it, so I[had Codex optimize it](https://github.com/simonw/alchemy-utils/commit/e3b8d03e040867b256aeff7db322a0b0eb1f8b06)and got it down to around 35 seconds\.\)