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First steps with Harlequin

Today I used Harlequin for the first time. It is a SQL IDE for the terminal and the setup or installation was surprisingly easy.

I tried out the tool as part of my "elt-on-github-actions" repository (more information on that will follow). I wanted to test the conditional logic in my marts models: If it is the production environment, output to blob storage and if it is not, then create a view in the duckdb database.

Since I was already using uv to manage the dependencies of the dbt project, getting Harlequin to run was as simple as typing uvx harlequin database/dwh_local.duckdb. This command uses the shorthand notation for uv tool which runs the tool in another ephemeral environment. I then call Harlequin and point it to my local duckdb file.

That worked like a charm.

Handy shortcuts

There were also some useful keyboard shortcuts that I quickly picked up from the documentation's "Get oriented" guide.

  • ctrl + j to execute a query
  • ctrl + w to clear the query editor
  • ctrl + n to open a new buffer (or tab) in the query editor
  • F10 for fullscreen mode, this is especially useful when browsing the results viewer
  • F2 to focus (again) on the query editor
  • F6 to focus on the data catalogue
  • . on any database object to select options such as "view DDL" or "describe"
  • ctrl + b to hide or show the data catalogue pane
  • crtl + q to quit the program

Conclusion

Overall, I must say that I really like Harlequin. I was positively surprised by how quickly I was able to get it running in my project.

I am certain I will use it more often in the future considering its tight integration with uv and the ease-of-use once I picked up a few keyboard shortcuts.