Tusk Studio¶
PostgreSQL admin and SQL studio with an AI copilot and light analytics. One process, one browser tab, state in ~/.tusk.
What it is¶
The tool you open every day to work with your Postgres:
- A SQL editor with tabs, schema autocomplete, results as table / chart / map, and an AI Copilot grounded in the real catalog.
- A schema map of tables and foreign keys, with Schema Watch and Data Contracts to catch drift.
- A table profiler that samples a table and emits per-column statistics.
- A PostgreSQL admin console for processes, locks, settings, backups, roles, extensions.
- Dashboards built in, plus scheduled jobs and notifications.
- An MCP server so agents can query your connections read-only with your permissions.
You install one wheel. You run one process. You point a browser at it.
When it's a fit¶
Good fit: small-to-medium businesses running one or a few Postgres databases, internal-tool teams that want dashboards + admin without spinning up Metabase + pgAdmin + Datadog, anyone tired of docker-compose up with 6 sidecars.
Not the right fit: high-availability multi-replica deployments (single-process by design — ADR 0001), warehouse-scale analytics (use Snowflake / BigQuery / Trino), heavy ETL orchestration (use Airflow / dbt).
Top-level features¶
| Tab | What it does | Doc page |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Activity summary, recent queries, AI suggestions | home.md |
| Studio | Multi-tab SQL editor with results table, charts, maps | studio.md |
| Schema | Interactive ER diagram of your tables and foreign keys | schema.md |
| Explore | Auto-profile any table — per-column stats, histograms, distinct counts | explore.md |
| Scheduled | Backups, vacuum/analyze, queries, pipelines and schema checks on a cron | scheduled.md |
| Data | Visual Polars ETL: files, Postgres, open data → transforms → export/import/pipeline | data.md |
| Admin | PostgreSQL admin: processes, locks, settings, backups, roles | admin.md |
| Analytics | Dashboards and charts, built in | analytics.md |
| Notifications | Slack, Discord, Telegram, email or webhook for job, backup, schema and contract events | notifications.md |
| Schema Watch | Snapshot + diff of a connection's schema, notify on changes | schema-watch.md |
| Data Contracts | Freeze the schema as a contract; be told when something breaks it | data-contracts.md |
| AI Copilot | Plain-language to SQL grounded in the real catalog, PostGIS-aware, place-name lookup; explains plans | copilot.md |
| MCP server | Let Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client query your connections, read-only | mcp.md |
| Desktop window | tusk app: Studio in a native window (preview) |
desktop.md |
| Users & tokens | Single vs multi-user mode, sessions, personal API tokens, audit log | auth.md |
Get started¶
- Install:
pip install tuskdata[all]thentusk studio. - Deploy on K8s: see deployment/kubernetes.md.
- Read the architecture: ADR 0001 — single-process by default.