GAARD - Governed AI Access to Relational Data

GAARD is a self-hosted AI SQL Gateway for governed natural-language access to relational data.

GAARD allows applications and users to ask questions about relational databases using natural language while keeping SQL generation, validation, execution, prompts, connectors, and auditability under control.

For more informacion see https://github.com/pkroliszewski/gaard

This package

Package gaard-connectors extends gaard functionality by adding support for various database connection schemes.

Built-in SQLAlchemy datasource types include SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM Db2, Teradata, and ODBC / unixODBC. Install the matching optional dependency extra for drivers that are not part of the default package.

ODBC / unixODBC

The odbc datasource type connects through the existing GAARD SQLAlchemy pipeline:

GAARD -> SQLAlchemy dialect -> pyodbc -> unixODBC -> vendor ODBC driver -> database

ODBC is not a SQL dialect. Configure the real SQLAlchemy driver name, for example mssql+pyodbc, and the unixODBC driver or DSN separately.

Python dependency:

python -m pip install 'gaard-connectors[odbc]'

System dependency on Oracle Linux 8/9:

dnf install -y unixODBC unixODBC-devel

Vendor dependency: install the ODBC driver for the selected database according to the vendor license and instructions.

Useful diagnostics:

odbcinst -j
odbcinst -q -d
python -c "import pyodbc; print(pyodbc.drivers())"

DSN mode uses a DSN already configured in odbc.ini:

connection_mode=dsn
sqlalchemy_drivername=mssql+pyodbc
dsn=hospital_reporting
username=gaard_reader
password=...

DSN-less mode sends the connection attributes directly through odbc_connect:

connection_mode=dsnless
sqlalchemy_drivername=mssql+pyodbc
odbc_driver=ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server
host=sql01.internal
port=1433
database=ERP
username=gaard_reader
password=...
Encrypt=yes
TrustServerCertificate=yes

For Docker or Podman, unixODBC, odbc.ini, odbcinst.ini, and the vendor driver library must be available inside the GAARD API container. Mounting only .ini files is not enough if the referenced shared library is missing.

When the ODBC setup lives on a different machine than GAARD, prefer DSN-less configuration against the remote database host or run the GAARD API/worker beside that unixODBC installation. A DSN name on a remote Unix host is not automatically visible to a local GAARD process because unixODBC is loaded in-process by pyodbc.