squirrelbyte 🐿️

squirrelbyte is a "proof of concept" document / search server backed by sqlite.

see it at https://squirrelbyte.com/

server

server is the squirrelbyte server

it's a json blob server

JSON documents are stashed in sqlite using the sqlite json1 extension.

it supports a query syntax similar to jsonlogic

it uses sqlite as a data store

the /documents:search endpoint DOES NOT use prepared queries, so it's recommended /documents:search is used only in safe contexts (read-only, local)

feels verbose ... too much indirection ... but the show must go on

it serves the static web bundle

perhaps more to come ... getting it out there

web

web is the squirrel byte web application.

web is written in React is js & with frequent use of the lodash library.

the project was started using the create-react-app utility.

it uses to react-virtualized to maintain good performance queries return many results.

few other deps

the code quality & aesthetics are rough ... performance & functionality should be good.

perhaps more to come!

why

I like to explore & understand data from the software services I use - Strava, Garmin, GitHub, AWS, & some others.

Some tools I like for exploring data in general are:

• Datasette - for exploring sqlite databases
• jq - for sifting through local json files
• Honeycomb - for general observability of distributed systems ... but in this case, for the query UI & how it works nicely for high cardinality data.
• Grafana / ElasticSearch + Kibana - for general dashboard building, data ingestion, etc.

For my usecase, I wanted a way to:

• Stash my data in its "original" JSON form
• Explore it later & build whatever views I want
• Keep costs & infrastructure complexity low
• Self-host it / own my data

squirrelbyte is first step towards these goals -- a document / search server & UI, drawing inspiration from tools that I like. What's here is minimal, but could become more.