Postquel: a native PostgreSQL client for Mac, with your own AI

I built a PostgreSQL client for macOS called Postquel. It's free and open source. 🙏

The part I wanted to try was using the AI account you already have on your Mac. If you're signed in to Claude Code, Codex or Cursor Agent, Postquel can use that. You pick the agent and model. There's no separate API key to put into the app.

Why sign in to another AI service just to ask a question about a table?

The usual database stuff

Your tables are in the sidebar. Open one and you get Content, Structure and DDL views. Edit the rows there, or follow a foreign key instead of hunting down the other table yourself.

For a file with several queries, Cmd + Return runs the one under your cursor. You can leave the rest alone. Sorting results is a click on the column header, and queries you want to keep can be saved to the sidebar.

For structure changes, you can edit columns, indexes and constraints, then look at the generated SQL before saving. The changes are applied together in one transaction.

Nothing particularly exotic here. A database client still needs to be useful when you know exactly what SQL you want to write.

Ask about the actual database

Say you want to know which customers spent the most last month. Ask it that.

The assistant has tools for reading the schema and querying your connected database. It can look up the tables itself. You don't have to copy a bunch of table definitions into a chat window first.

There's also a prompt bar for turning a description into SQL. So if you know what you want but can't be bothered writing the query from scratch, type it there.

I do want a distinction between asking about data and changing it. The assistant's database connection is read-only. If it wants to change data or the schema, it proposes SQL for you to review, dry-run and apply.

An answer in a chat window is one thing. An update to your database is another. You should get to look at the query.

A Mac app

I went with SwiftUI and AppKit for this. The grid is an NSTableView, the editor is an NSTextView, and libpq does the database work.

SSH tunnels are supported. Passwords are kept in Keychain. If you're on macOS 26, you'll also get Liquid Glass.

You don't need a local Postgres installation to use it. I bundle libpq and OpenSSL with the download. You'll need macOS 15 or later, on either Apple silicon or Intel.

Try it

Download the DMG, open it and drag Postquel to Applications. The app is signed and notarized by Apple.

If you want the assistant, install and sign in to Claude Code, Codex or Cursor Agent first. You can use the table browser and SQL editor without it.

It's still a prototype. Have a look, try it on a database, and tell me what's missing or annoying. That's more useful to me than a star, although I won't complain about those either. 👽

Source on GitHub · Website