Getting started

Install

The pgzest command line — the language server included:

cargo install pgzest --locked

or a prebuilt binary (macOS arm64, Linux x64 and arm64, Windows x64) from the GitHub releases.

The editor: the pgzest extension, from the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX (VSCodium, Cursor…). It ships its own pgzest on those platforms — see Editor.

For Rust code, the crates come from crates.io: see Typed queries in Rust.

Try the demo

Prerequisites: Rust (the version is pinned by rust-toolchain.toml), Node.js 24 or later for the VS Code extension, and Docker for PostgreSQL 18.

git clone https://github.com/Creatiwity/pgzest
cd pgzest
make bootstrap   # Rust and npm dependencies, checks the tooling
make demo        # VS Code on examples/demo, with the pgzest extension
make demo-run    # the demo's Rust program against PostgreSQL 18 (Docker)

examples/demo is a small ordering application written like a real project — a declarative schema, generated migrations, named queries, Rust code using them, a traced trigger. Its README.md is a guided tour: hover a query, break a column name, generate a migration, read a trace.

make demo opens VS Code with the extension loaded in development mode: nothing is installed in your VS Code.

Set up a project

A project is a directory with a pgzest.toml; the CLI and the editor find it by walking up from the file they work on.

pgzest.toml

[postgres]
version = 18

[schema]
directory = "schema"     # the CREATE TABLEs, functions, triggers…

[queries]
directory = "queries"    # the named queries

The schema can also come from existing migrations — numbered files, Prisma or Diesel layouts, read as they are:

[migrations]
directory = "prisma/migrations"

Check the project:

pgzest check schema/*.sql queries/*.sql

Every option: pgzest.toml.

Next

• Generate Rust from the queries: Typed queries in Rust.
• Move the schema to declarative files and generate migrations: Schema and migrations.
• Use it in the editor: Editor.