DBCopilot — AI Database Copilot for SQLite (VS Code extension)

Schema-aware SQLite explorer with a Mistral-powered AI assistant: NL-to-SQL, query explain/optimize, schema Q&A, and a safety-gated execution pipeline. Companion to the dbcopilot PyPI CLI (same design, terminal-first).

Setup

npm install
npm run build

Then press F5 in VS Code (with this folder open) to launch the Extension Development Host.

On first activation, if the open workspace has a .env with MISTRAL_API_KEY (e.g. this repo's D:\SQLext\.env), DBCopilot will offer to import it into VS Code's secure SecretStorage — the key is never read from .env again after that, and never written to settings.json. You can also set/replace it any time via DBCopilot: Set Mistral API Key.

⚠️ Native module (better-sqlite3) — rebuild for Electron before first F5

better-sqlite3 ships a prebuilt native binary matched to the Node.js version that ran npm install (here, plain Node). VS Code's extension host runs inside Electron's bundled Node, which is a different ABI, so the extension will throw a NODE_MODULE_VERSION mismatch the first time it tries to open a database unless the binary is rebuilt against Electron:

npx electron-rebuild -f -w better-sqlite3

(Run this once after npm install, and again after any npm install that touches better-sqlite3.) If you don't have electron-rebuild available, npm i -D electron-rebuild first.

What's implemented (Core MVP scope)

• SQLite connection management (SecretStorage for the API key, globalState for profiles)
• Schema Explorer tree: tables, columns (PK/FK icons, tooltips), indexes, views
• Read-only Data Grid (500-row preview, NULL/JSON/binary-aware rendering)
• Query editor: any .sql file, Ctrl+Enter/Run button, connection-scoped
• AI Chat panel: streaming NL-to-SQL, explain, schema Q&A, "Run This Query"
• Safety pipeline: real-parser (node-sql-parser) classification, modal confirm with a typed-CONFIRM gate for schema changes, and a hard Read-Only Mode block
• Per-connection consent gate before schema is ever sent to Mistral

Explicitly out of scope for this build (later PRD phases / not applicable at SQLite scale): PostgreSQL/MySQL/etc. adapters, local model providers, inline ghost-text completions, RAG/ embeddings, ER diagrams, charts, doc generation, editable grid, execution-plan viewer.

Simplifications vs. the full PRD (APP.md)

• Single AI provider (Mistral only), not the multi-provider architecture in the PRD
• Webview UIs are plain HTML/CSS/vanilla JS (VS Code theme variables), not React/TanStack
• The confirmation dialog uses VS Code's native modal (showWarningMessage) rather than a custom webview — a real modal, which better satisfies "must not be dismissible with a single click" than a non-modal webview panel would