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Client compatibility

The verified client-tool matrix — psql, DBeaver, DataGrip, Metabase, dbt, JDBC, psycopg, node-postgres — and the limitations that are by design.

Dataglot speaks the PostgreSQL wire protocol (both simple and extended flavors), so anything built on a Postgres driver connects. GUI tools are grouped under the driver they embed — a tool's schema browser and query runner exercise exactly the driver behaviors the matrix scripts cover.

Scripted verification. The matrix below is verified by an automated smoke suite that runs connect / introspect / federated query / extended protocol (parameterized) / cancel through each driver stack against a live server on every release.

All stacks pass (psql, node-postgres, pgJDBC, psycopg) in both single-node and distributed modes. One operational note for distributed servers: under heavy concurrent load, queries queue for executor slots and resume as slots free — throughput behavior, independent of the client.

Matrix

Tool / stackDriverConnectIntrospectFederated queryExtended protocolCancelVerified
psqllibpq✅✅ (\dt, \d, information_schema)✅✅ (\bind)✅ Ctrl-Cscripted
pgclipsycopg✅✅✅✅✅via psycopg (scripted); single-node + distributed
Python (psycopg 3)psycopg✅✅✅✅✅ Connection.cancel()scripted; distributed verified 30/30
dbt-postgrespsycopg2✅✅✅✅✅via psycopg (scripted); no DDL → see limits
Node.js (pg)node-postgres✅✅✅✅n/a (driver exposes no cancel API)scripted
DBeaverpgJDBC✅✅ (DatabaseMetaData)✅✅✅ Statement.cancel()via pgJDBC (scripted)
DataGrippgJDBC✅✅✅✅✅via pgJDBC (scripted)
MetabasepgJDBC✅✅✅✅✅via pgJDBC (scripted)
Grafana (postgres datasource)lib/pq (Go)✅✅✅✅—expected (wire-identical checks pass on 4 other stacks)
Rust (tokio-postgres)tokio-postgres✅✅✅✅✅CI e2e

Query cancellation (the wire CancelRequest) is handled server-side for both the planning and streaming phases, including distributed queries — a cancelled distributed job is also cancelled on the cluster, not orphaned.

Catalogs are databases to your client

\dt other_catalog.schema.* errors with "cross-database references are not implemented" — identical to real Postgres, because each Dataglot catalog is a database in psql's model. Reconnect with dbname=<catalog>, or use information_schema with a table_catalog predicate.

Known limitations (by design)

Dataglot is a read-path federation and governance engine, not a Postgres replacement. Tools that assume full Postgres will hit these:

  • No data-plane DML — INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE and model materialization (CREATE TABLE AS) are not supported; Dataglot is a read/federation + governance engine. dbt works for SELECT-shaped workflows (sources, tests, compiled queries) but cannot materialize models. Control-plane DDL — CREATE CATALOG / SECRET / USER / ROLE / MASK / ROW FILTER / VIEW / GRANT — is supported at runtime (see runtime configuration); a session CREATE TABLE also works single-node.
  • No COPY protocol ingest — bulk load belongs to the sources, not the federation layer. Tools that hard-require COPY for export will fall back to row-by-row fetch or fail on that feature only.
  • No transactions — BEGIN/COMMIT are accepted as no-ops (pooler compatibility), which is correct for a read-only engine but means tools cannot rely on isolation semantics.
  • Session-control no-ops — DISCARD, RESET, SAVEPOINT return success without effect (pooler compatibility).

Wire behaviors tools rely on (implemented)

  • information_schema.tables / columns and the pg_catalog subset that psql's \d* commands and JDBC's DatabaseMetaData issue (catalog-metadata queries are routed through a dedicated bypass to keep them fast against federated sessions).
  • version(), current_database(), current_schema() and the startup parameters GUIs read.
  • Extended-protocol prepare/bind/execute with typed parameters.
  • BackendKeyData + CancelRequest — wire-level cancel from a second connection, the mechanism every tool's "stop query" button uses.