Introduction

basalt is a SQL data movement engine in a single static binary. A script describes a columnar data pipeline: read from a source, transform with a query, write to a sink. A script is plan-time static — parsed, type-checked, and planned once, then executed as a streaming pull pipeline.

CREATE CONNECTION erp TYPE sqlserver OPTIONS (host = 'sql.internal', database = 'totvs');

LOAD INTO 'az://lakeacct/bronze/orders.parquet' AS
SELECT id, customer, amount, placed_at
FROM erp.orders
WHERE status = 'paid';

The sources and sinks are files (CSV, Parquet, Arrow IPC, Excel), object storage, SFTP servers, Windows shares, SQL databases and HTTP APIs; the same script runs once from the command line, or as an HTTP endpoint under basalt serve.

This book is the reference for the dialect, derived from the parser (src/lang/sql_parser.zig); it describes what the engine actually accepts.

• Getting started runs a first query and a first load.
• The language covers scripts, parameters, connections, queries and the statements around them.
• Reference lists the expressions, types and functions.
• Connectors has what is particular to each kind of database, API and file server.
• Tools describes the command line, the REPL and the kernel a notebook drives.