DuckDB WebAssembly Components

This repository contains a pair of WebAssembly components that wrap the DuckDB C API (libduckdb) and expose it through the Wasm component model.

• ducklink-core: Implements the duckdb:component/database world and provides structured access to DuckDB connections and SQL execution.
• ducklink-cli: Implements the wasi:cli/run world and offers a WASI-native command line interface that mirrors the behaviour of the native DuckDB shell while delegating database access through the component interface.

Both components are intended to run in preview2-capable runtimes such as wasmtime 16.0+.

Extension catalog

The repo also ships 111 component extensions (254 SQL functions) — Rust wasm32-wasip2 components implementing the duckdb:extension WIT world, loadable at runtime with LOAD <name> and verified by tooling/smoke.py. They span text & NLP, encodings, crypto, aggregates (bloom/minhash/count-min sketches), and gated network (dns/http). See CATALOG.md for the full index (regenerate with python3 tooling/gen-catalog.py; verify integrity with python3 tooling/verify-catalog.py).

Repository layout

wit/
  core/                Shared database interface definitions
  standalone/          WASI-oriented worlds (standalone DB + CLI)
  browser/             Browser-oriented database world
crates/
  libduckdb-sys/       bindgen-based bindings to the DuckDB C API
  ducklink-core/ Component implementation of the DuckDB API
  ducklink-cli/ WASI CLI component built on top of the exported API
scripts/
  build-libduckdb-wasm.sh  Helper for cross-compiling DuckDB to wasm32-wasi
cmake/toolchains/
  wasi-sdk.cmake       Toolchain file for building DuckDB with wasi-sdk

Prerequisites

1. DuckDB source at DUCKDB_SOURCE_DIR (e.g. ~/src/duckdb). A shallow clone is sufficient:

   git clone https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb.git ~/src/duckdb

2. wasi-sdk (tested with 33.0; exception handling requires >= 33) with WASI_SDK_PREFIX pointing at the installation root. A predownloaded copy lives under external/wasi-sdk-33.0-<platform>; point the variable there if you do not have a global install.
3. Rust tooling:
   • rustup target add wasm32-wasi
   • cargo install cargo-component
4. wit-bindgen tooling (included automatically by cargo-component).

Network access is required only when fetching DuckDB or installing the toolchain.

Building libduckdb for wasm32-wasi

The component links against a statically built libduckdb compiled for wasm32-wasi. Use the helper script to cross-compile the library:

export DUCKDB_SOURCE_DIR=~/src/duckdb
export WASI_SDK_PREFIX="$(pwd)/external/wasi-sdk-33.0-arm64-macos"
export WASI_TARGET_TRIPLE=wasm32-wasip2
export WASM_EXTENSIONS=json  # defaults to json if unset; comma‑separate to add more later
scripts/build-libduckdb-wasm.sh

The script places libduckdb-wasi.a under artifacts/. Afterwards set the following environment variables so the Rust build can locate the headers and the archive:

export DUCKDB_INCLUDE_DIR="$DUCKDB_SOURCE_DIR/src/include"
export DUCKDB_STATIC_LIB="$(pwd)/artifacts/libduckdb-wasi.a"

Browser-oriented static library

For the browser component you will need a DuckDB archive compiled for the appropriate wasm32-unknown-unknown (or equivalent) target. Once built, point DUCKDB_STATIC_LIB at that archive and use the make core-browser target to produce ducklink_core.wasm with the browser feature enabled.

Building the components

Compile both components using the make targets (they call cargo component under the hood):

make

Individual targets are also available:

make core
make ducklink-cli

# Build the browser-oriented core (requires a browser-compatible DuckDB static archive)
make core-browser BROWSER_TARGET=wasm32-unknown-unknown

The resulting component binaries are generated in target/wasm32-wasi/release/:

• ducklink_core.wasm
• ducklink_cli.wasm

Developing component extensions

Extensions live under extensions/<name>-component, register imperatively in load() against the duckdb:extension world, and are tracked by the tooling in tooling/ + registry/ (mirrors ~/git/sqlite-wasm's system). The full roadmap is in PLAN-duckdb-extensions.md.

# Scaffold a skeleton (consults tooling/compat-registry.json for crate status,
# registers the workspace member, and cargo-checks that it compiles):
make ext-scaffold NAME=myext CRATE=base32,bs58

# Edit extensions/myext-component/src/lib.rs + smoke.sql, then build + smoke:
make ext NAME=myext-component

# Seed assertions from current output, review, and re-run to assert:
python3 tooling/smoke.py --seed-expected myext
python3 tooling/smoke.py myext

make ext-smoke-all        # smoke every extension
make ext-list-broken      # crates flagged un-buildable on wasm32-wasip2
python3 tooling/t-status.py   # tooling-improvement items from build experience

Extensions load through the native host runner (ducklink); the wac-composed standalone CLI links a no-op loader stub and cannot instantiate them. isin (hand-rolled) and baseN (crate-backed) are worked examples. See docs/component-extension-guide.md for the capability surface and packaging details.

Using the components

Component worlds

• wit/core/duckdb-core.wit defines the shared duckdb:component/database interface implemented by the core component.
• wit/standalone/duckdb-standalone.wit exports the database world for WASI runtimes, while wit/standalone/duckdb-cli.wit wires in the CLI experience on top of it.
• wit/browser/duckdb-browser.wit will back the browser-friendly component variant, sharing the same database surface but relying on host-provided storage and networking.

Direct database access

Instantiate the database component with a runtime that supports the component model. For example, using wasmtime:

wasmtime component run target/wasm32-wasi/release/ducklink_core.wasm --dir .

Pre-open directories that contain database files (e.g. --dir .) so the component can access them via WASI.

CLI component

The CLI component imports the database world and exposes a wasi:cli entry point. To run it with wasmtime you can compose the CLI and core components using the wac tool:

# Install the wac CLI once
cargo install wac-cli

# Compose the CLI + core component pair
wac plug target/wasm32-wasip2/release/ducklink_cli.wasm \
  --plug target/wasm32-wasip2/release/ducklink_core.wasm \
  -o artifacts/duckdb-cli.wasm

# Execute a query (grant directory access for any on-disk database file)
wasmtime run artifacts/duckdb-cli.wasm --dir . -- :memory: -c "select 42;"

For quick validation there is also a helper script that performs the wac plug step and executes a simple query:

scripts/smoke-cli.sh

The script accepts optional environment variables (SQL, DB_PATH, EXTRA_WASMTIME_FLAGS, EXTENSIONS) to tailor the smoke test. For example, set EXTENSIONS="sample_extension" to pass --load-extension sample_extension to the CLI before the query runs.

The CLI supports:

• Connecting to a database file or running purely in-memory (ducklink_cli.wasm :memory:)
• Executing a single command via -c "SQL"
• Preloading componentized extensions via --load-extension <name> (repeat for multiple extensions); this issues a LOAD <name> statement before user SQL runs
• Interactive REPL with .help, .exit, and .quit

Result sets are rendered in a text table that mirrors the native DuckDB shell.

WIT packages

All WIT interfaces live under wit/ at the repository root. That directory vendors the WASI Preview 2 packages at version 0.2.6 (the latest preview supported by Wasmtime 37.0.2), along with the DuckDB-specific packages. The crate-local copies under crates/*/wit/ are generated from this canonical tree via scripts/sync-core-wit.sh and scripts/sync-cli-wit.sh. Always edit the WIT files in wit/ first, then re-run the sync scripts to propagate changes before building.

External extensions can depend on the definitions in wit/duckdb-extension/ to stay in sync with the host runtime without having to vendor their own copies of the extension interfaces.

Native host runner

The ducklink-host crate provides a reusable Wasmtime runner that composes the CLI and core components along with the componentized extension loader. Build and execute it via:

cargo run -p ducklink-host --bin ducklink -- -- duckdb-cli :memory: -c "select 42 as answer;"

Additional directories can be exposed to the CLI with --dir /host/path::/guest/path, and custom component artifacts can be supplied with --core-component / --cli-component. The host automatically preopens the current working directory as . so relative database paths continue to work.

Extension components

DuckDB’s extension loader is in the process of resolving WebAssembly components from artifacts/extensions/. When an extension registers itself with the core component, the name is sanitized to [A-Za-z0-9_-] and mapped to <name>.wasm inside that directory. As the loader matures, dropping a compiled extension there will allow LOAD <name> to instantiate it through the preview2 runtime rather than the native shared-library path.

This repository ships a minimal sample extension under extensions/sample-extension-component/ that exercises the component interface. You can build and validate it end-to-end via:

make smoke-extension

The target runs the ducklink-host test load_sample_extension_component, which:

1. Builds the sample extension (if it is not already present).
2. Copies the resulting component to artifacts/extensions/sample_extension.wasm.
3. Instantiates it with Wasmtime using the preview2 bindings and asserts that load() returns the expected metadata.

Testing

Currently the project does not ship a full integration test suite because executing the components requires a preview2 runtime plus a wasm32-wasi build of DuckDB. Manual smoke testing can be done after building:

wasmtime component run artifacts/duckdb-cli.wasm --dir . -- in_memory_db.duckdb -c "select 42 as answer;"

There are also convenience targets:

make smoke-cli            # :memory: query via scripts/smoke-cli.sh
make smoke-cli-disk       # same but forces an on-disk temp database
make sample-extension     # builds the sample component and copies it to artifacts/extensions/
make smoke-extension      # runs Cargo test to build + load the sample extension component

To validate the preview2 filesystem adapter against real storage outside of make, set ON_DISK_SMOKE=1 when running scripts/smoke-cli.sh; the helper will create a temporary on-disk database, grant Wasmtime access to that directory, and delete it after the query completes.

Continuous smoke coverage runs in CI via .github/workflows/smoke-tests.yml, which builds the components and executes both the in-memory and on-disk runs of scripts/smoke-cli.sh on every push and pull request.

Running CI locally with act

Until hosted Actions are available (public repo / billing), the same workflow can run locally with nektos/act in Docker:

brew install act          # one-time (Docker must be running)
make ci-local             # runs .github/workflows/smoke-tests.yml
scripts/ci-local.sh -l    # list jobs without running

.actrc maps ubuntu-latest to catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest and enables --reuse so caches persist between runs. The wasi-sdk download in the workflow is architecture-aware (x86_64/arm64), so it runs natively under act on Apple silicon as well as on GitHub's x86_64 runners. The first run is slow (it pulls the runner image, compiles the component tooling, and builds the patched DuckDB archive); afterwards the cached archive makes runs fast.

Database interface

Beyond execute / open-stream, the database interface exposes:

• Prepared statements — prepare(conn, sql) returns a reusable prepared-statement resource; execute(params) binds positional parameters ($1, $2, ...) and runs it, rebinding from scratch each call.
• Configuration — open-with-config(path, options) opens a database applying (name, value) options (e.g. access_mode, default_order, max_memory).
• Arrow — query-arrow(conn, sql) returns the result as an Arrow IPC stream (list<u8>), decodable by any Arrow implementation (apache-arrow in JS, arrow-rs in Rust). Zero-copy is not possible across the component boundary, so buffers are serialized once into IPC bytes.

Next steps

• Flesh out remaining CLI scripting parity with the native shell
• Resolve GitHub Actions billing so the smoke-tests workflow can run

Acknowledgments

This project owes a clear debt to Simon Willison and sqlite-utils. The extension catalog, the scaffold → smoke → feedback tooling loop, and much of the CLI ergonomics here follow the patterns Simon established with sqlite-utils and the wider Datasette ecosystem for making a database pleasant to extend and script from the command line. Many of the component extensions also mirror utilities first popularized in that ecosystem. Thank you.