DuckDB Extension Template

This repository contains a template for creating a DuckDB extension. The main goal of this template is to allow users to easily develop, test and distribute their own DuckDB extension. The main branch of the template is always based on the latest stable DuckDB allowing you to try out your extension right away.

Getting started

First step to getting started is to create your own repo from this template by clicking Use this template. Then clone your new repository using

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/<you>/<your-new-extension-repo>.git

Note that --recurse-submodules will ensure DuckDB is pulled which is required to build the extension.

Building

Managing dependencies

DuckDB extensions uses VCPKG for dependency management. Enabling VCPKG is very simple: follow the installation instructions or just run the following:

cd <your-working-dir-not-the-plugin-repo>
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
sh ./vcpkg/scripts/bootstrap.sh -disableMetrics
export VCPKG_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=`pwd`/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

Note: VCPKG is only required for extensions that want to rely on it for dependency management. If you want to develop an extension without dependencies, or want to do your own dependency management, just skip this step. Note that the example extension uses VCPKG to build with a dependency for instructive purposes, so when skipping this step the build may not work without removing the dependency.

Build steps

Now to build the extension, run:

make

The main binaries that will be built are:

./build/release/duckdb
./build/release/test/unittest
./build/release/extension/<extension_name>/<extension_name>.duckdb_extension

• duckdb is the binary for the duckdb shell with the extension code automatically loaded.
• unittest is the test runner of duckdb. Again, the extension is already linked into the binary.
• <extension_name>.duckdb_extension is the loadable binary as it would be distributed.

Running the extension

To run the extension code, simply start the shell with ./build/release/duckdb. This shell will have the extension pre-loaded.

Now we can use the features from the extension directly in DuckDB. The template contains a single scalar function quack() that takes a string arguments and returns a string:

D select quack('Jane') as result;
┌───────────────┐
│    result     │
│    varchar    │
├───────────────┤
│ Quack Jane 🐥 │
└───────────────┘

Running the tests

Different tests can be created for DuckDB extensions. The primary way of testing DuckDB extensions should be the SQL tests in ./test/sql. These SQL tests can be run using:

make test

Getting started with your own extension

After creating a repository from this template, the first step is to name your extension. To rename the extension, run:

python3 ./scripts/bootstrap-template.py <extension_name_you_want>

Feel free to delete the script after this step.

Now you're good to go! After a (re)build, you should now be able to use your duckdb extension:

./build/release/duckdb
D select <extension_name_you_chose>('Jane') as result;
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│                result               │
│               varchar               │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ <extension_name_you_chose> Jane 🐥  │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

For inspiration/examples on how to extend DuckDB in a more meaningful way, check out the test extensions, the in-tree extensions, and the out-of-tree extensions.

Distributing your extension

To distribute your extension binaries, there are a few options.

Community extensions

The recommended way of distributing extensions is through the community extensions repository. This repository is designed specifically for extensions that are built using this extension template, meaning that as long as your extension can be built using the default CI in this template, submitting it to the community extensions is a very simple process. The process works similarly to popular package managers like homebrew and vcpkg, where a PR containing a descriptor file is submitted to the package manager repository. After the CI in the community extensions repository completes, the extension can be installed and loaded in DuckDB with:

INSTALL <my_extension> FROM community;
LOAD <my_extension>

For more information, see the community extensions documentation.

Downloading artifacts from GitHub

The default CI in this template will automatically upload the binaries for every push to the main branch as GitHub Actions artifacts. These can be downloaded manually and then loaded directly using:

LOAD '/path/to/downloaded/extension.duckdb_extension';

Note that this will require starting DuckDB with the allow_unsigned_extensions option set to true. How to set this will depend on the client you're using. For the CLI it is done like:

duckdb -unsigned

Uploading to a custom repository

If for some reason distributing through community extensions is not an option, extensions can also be uploaded to a custom extension repository. This will give some more control over where and how the extensions are distributed, but comes with the downside of requiring the allow_unsigned_extensions option to be set. For examples of how to configure a manual GitHub Actions deploy pipeline, check out the extension deploy script in https://github.com/duckdb/extension-ci-tools. Some examples of extensions that use this CI/CD workflow check out spatial or aws.

Extensions in custom repositories can be installed and loaded using:

INSTALL <my_extension> FROM 'http://my-custom-repo'
LOAD <my_extension>

Versioning of your extension

Extension binaries will only work for the specific DuckDB version they were built for. The version of DuckDB that is targeted is set to the latest stable release for the main branch of the template so initially that is all you need. As new releases of DuckDB are published however, the extension repository will need to be updated. The template comes with a workflow set-up that will automatically build the binaries for all DuckDB target architectures that are available in the corresponding DuckDB version. This workflow is found in .github/workflows/MainDistributionPipeline.yml. It is up to the extension developer to keep this up to date with DuckDB. Note also that its possible to distribute binaries for multiple DuckDB versions in this workflow by simply duplicating the jobs.

Setting up CLion

Opening project

Configuring CLion with the extension template requires a little work. Firstly, make sure that the DuckDB submodule is available. Then make sure to open ./duckdb/CMakeLists.txt (so not the top level CMakeLists.txt file from this repo) as a project in CLion. Now to fix your project path go to tools->CMake->Change Project Root(docs) to set the project root to the root dir of this repo.

Debugging

To set up debugging in CLion, there are two simple steps required. Firstly, in CLion -> Settings / Preferences -> Build, Execution, Deploy -> CMake you will need to add the desired builds (e.g. Debug, Release, RelDebug, etc). There's different ways to configure this, but the easiest is to leave all empty, except the build path, which needs to be set to ../build/{build type}. Now on a clean repository you will first need to run make {build type} to initialize the CMake build directory. After running make, you will be able to (re)build from CLion by using the build target we just created. If you use the CLion editor, you can create a CLion CMake profiles matching the CMake variables that are described in the makefile, and then you don't need to invoke the Makefile.

The second step is to configure the unittest runner as a run/debug configuration. To do this, go to Run -> Edit Configurations and click + -> Cmake Application. The target and executable should be unittest. This will run all the DuckDB tests. To specify only running the extension specific tests, add --test-dir ../../.. [sql] to the Program Arguments. Note that it is recommended to use the unittest executable for testing/development within CLion. The actual DuckDB CLI currently does not reliably work as a run target in CLion.