ChatGPT Prompt for SQL Writing

Generate a prompt for writing SQL queries with LLMs like ChatGPT. Drop your database URL and table name into the script and it will generate a prompt for you to copy and paste into your favorite LLM.

What this does

• Snapshot of Table Structure: Understand the columns, types, and organization of your table at a glance.
• Sample Rows: Includes INSERT statements to describe the data in your table.
• Extracts Table and Field Comments: If you have comments on your tables or columns, they will be included in the prompt.

Usage

Install the package:

pip install llm-sql-prompt

Here's how to use it:

Usage: llm-sql-prompt [OPTIONS] DATABASE_URL [TABLE_NAME]

Options:
  --help  Show this message and exit.

Generate a prompt from a postgres database:

llm-sql-prompt postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5555/database_name table_name | pbcopy
llm-sql-prompt $DATABASE_URL

From a local sqlite database:

llm-sql-prompt "$HOME/Library/Application Support/BeeperTexts/index.db" --all

Local CLI development

Run just install_editable to install this checkout globally in editable mode. Source changes are reflected without reinstalling.

This requires uv, just, zsh, and jq. If mise is available, the recipe also updates every installed pipx:llm-sql-prompt environment so mise can use the local checkout. Re-run after mise upgrades, which replace those editable installations.

Tunneling to a remote port

If you find yourself wanting to tunnel into a remote box and work with a production database, here's some helpful commands so you don't need to remember the weird SSH tunneling syntax:

function find_random_open_port() {
  local start_port=${1:-1024}
  local max_attempts=100
  local attempt=0
  local port=$start_port

  while (( attempt < max_attempts )); do
    if ! nc -z localhost $port 2>/dev/null; then
      echo $port
      return
    fi
    port=$((port + 1))
    attempt=$((attempt + 1))
  done

  echo "No open port found after $max_attempts attempts, starting from $start_port." > /dev/stderr
  return 1
}


function ssh-tunnel() {
  if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
    echo "Usage: ssh-tunnel remote_host remote_port [local_port]"
    echo "This function sets up SSH port forwarding."
    return 1
  fi

  local remote_host=$1
  local remote_port=$2
  local local_port=${3:-$(find-random-open-port $remote_port)}

  if [[ -z $local_port ]]; then
    echo "Failed to find an open local port."
    return 1
  fi

  echo "Forwarding local port $local_port to remote port $remote_port on $remote_host..."
  set -x
  ssh $remote_host -L ${local_port}:localhost:${remote_port}
}

TODO

Super basic script, needs a lot of work

• pg support
• one entrypoint
• use DB comments on columns + tables
• multiple tables
• prompt tweaking
• understand prompt size limits and sample records until one fits