Data

Local dev and Velvet

Use Velvet to query your local database. Set it up with ngrok and sync your development tables to ask questions.

Query your local database

Some of your company's most valuable data lives inside of your application database - but you need to test new tools and features using yourlocal development setup. You can set up your local development environment with Velvet. Use Velvet to unify data sources and write SQL directly - and try it out in development first.

Imagine you're not ready to connect your production Booklet database to Velvet, but you want to try it out. You have your local Postgres instance running on localhost:5432 with your development data inside - that's what you develop against all day long. With a tool like Ngrok, you can open up your local postgres to be accessible from the internet - something like startup-local-machine.ngrok.com:5432 - now you can add that as a remote connection in Velvet, and query against that local database.

Velvet's AI editor allows anyone on your team to interface directly with your data. And for engineers, this local environment can be used for everyday development.

How it works

We've engineered a data pipeline so you don't have to. Under the hood, we use ClickHouse to bring all your data together into one queryable interface. Each organization's workspace a ClickHouse database, and each source is a table.

Don't know all the specifics of a data source's schema? No problem. Ask any natural language question about your product and our AI editor introspects on your data to write the SQL for you. We've built in "healing" on errors, and the editor recommends additional queries that may be of interest based on the shape and patterns of your data.

So you can write queries like this, without breaking a sweat.

Connect your local database

Connecting local database tables is easy. We use ClickHouse's Table Engines to enable read-only access to your database. Choose which tables you want to give access to, or create read-only database users. Each table you add maps to a table in Velvet. Read our docs to connect your local database. It's a quick set up.

You can also capture specific webhooks for additional context. Each source has its own event queue. This feature is super flexible — send us any JSON and we’ll write it to your events table for that source. Read our docs to capture events from any source.

We're here for you! As an early-stage startup ourselves, we welcome your feedback and ideas. We can be as involved as you'd like in getting Velvet set up and productive for your tech stack.

Email us any time at team@usevelvet.com, or schedule a call here.

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