Starlet

Spatial tiling, Mapbox Vector Tile (MVT) generation, and on-demand tile serving for large geospatial datasets (GeoParquet / GeoJSON).

The pipeline is: partition a dataset into spatial tiles → build density histograms → (optionally) pre-generate MVTs → serve them over HTTP.

Install

pip install starlet

Requires Python 3.10+. This installs the starlet command-line tool.

Want to work on Starlet itself (run from a clone, run the tests)? See DEVELOPMENT.md.

Quick start

Turn a GeoParquet or GeoJSON file into a running tile server in two commands:

# 1. Build a dataset: partition into tiles + pre-generate vector tiles
starlet build --input data.parquet --outdir datasets/mydata

# 2. Serve it
starlet serve --dir datasets --port 8765

Then open http://localhost:8765 and pick your dataset to explore it on a map.

Commands

Everything is available through the starlet CLI (starlet --help).

Configuration

Starlet supports a TOML configuration file for settings you typically set once and reuse. Make a copy of the file starlet.toml.example and named it starlet.toml. Full details are in docs/CONFIGURATION.md. The configurations in that file will be loaded by default when Starlet runs. You can also pass a file explicitly:

starlet --config /path/to/starlet.toml build --input data.parquet --outdir datasets/mydata

Starlet CLI tools

`starlet build` — full pipeline (tile + MVT)

starlet build --input data.parquet --outdir datasets/mydata --zoom 8

Flag	Default	Description
`--input`	(required)	Path to a GeoParquet or GeoJSON file
`--outdir`	(required)	Output dataset directory
`--zoom`	7	Maximum MVT zoom level
`--partition-size`	512mb (GeoJSON) / 128mb (GeoParquet)	Target partition size, e.g. `256mb`, `1gb`
`--threshold`	0	Minimum feature count per MVT tile
`--pmtiles`	off	Also export a single `.pmtiles` archive
`--covering-bbox`	on	Write per-row bbox columns for faster on-demand serving

`starlet tile` — partition a dataset only

starlet tile --input data.parquet --outdir datasets/mydata

Flag	Default	Description
`--input`	(required)	Path to a GeoParquet or GeoJSON file
`--outdir`	(required)	Output dataset directory
`--partition-size`	512mb (GeoJSON) / 128mb (GeoParquet)	Target partition size; the number of tiles is derived from the input size
`--sort`	zorder	Within-tile row order: `zorder`, `hilbert`, `columns`, `none`
`--covering-bbox`	on	Write per-row bbox columns for faster on-demand serving
`--geom-col`	geometry	Geometry column name (e.g. `wkb_geometry` for OGR exports)
`--compression`	zstd	Parquet compression codec
`--seed`	42	Random seed for partitioning

`starlet mvt` — generate vector tiles from a tiled dataset

starlet mvt --dir datasets/mydata --zoom 7 --threshold 100000  # threshold optional; default 0

Flag	Default	Description
`--dir`	(required)	Dataset directory (contains `parquet_tiles/` and `histograms/`)
`--zoom`	7	Maximum zoom level
`--threshold`	0	Minimum feature count per tile
`--outdir`	`<dir>/mvt/`	MVT output directory
`--pmtiles`	config / off	Combinen all tiles in a single `.pmtiles` archive

`starlet serve` — launch the tile server

starlet serve --dir datasets --port 8765

Flag	Default	Description
`--dir`	(required)	Root directory containing dataset subdirectories
`--host`	0.0.0.0	Host to bind
`--port`	8765	Port to bind
`--cache-size`	256	In-memory tile cache size

`starlet info` — inspect a dataset

starlet info --dir datasets/mydata

Server API

Once starlet serve is running:

Method	Path	Description
`GET`	`/`	Interactive dataset selector
`GET`	`/api/datasets`	List all datasets
`GET`	`/datasets/<dataset>.json`	Dataset metadata
`GET`	`/<dataset>/<z>/<x>/<y>.mvt`	Mapbox Vector Tile
`GET`/`POST`	`/datasets/<dataset>/features.<csv\|geojson>`	Download features (optional geometry filter)
`GET`	`/api/datasets/<dataset>/stats`	Attribute statistics

Notes & tips

Geometry column not named geometry (common with OGR/pyogrio exports)? Pass --geom-col wkb_geometry.
Serving tiles on the fly (zooming past the pre-generated levels)? The default tiling output includes covering bbox columns so the server can prune row groups at read time. Use --no-covering-bbox only when optimizing for smaller Parquet files and batch generation speed.
One-file distribution: starlet mvt --pmtiles writes a single datasets/mydata/tiles.pmtiles archive inside the dataset directory. starlet build forwards the same setting to its MVT stage.

Deploying a server

See docs/DEPLOYMENT.md for a step-by-step guide to standing up a production tile server, including a no-root recipe behind an existing Apache install.

License

See the repository for license details.

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0.4.2

Aug 10, 2026

0.4.1

Jul 26, 2026

This release

0.4.0

Jul 17, 2026

0.3.2

Jul 8, 2026

0.3.1

Jul 7, 2026

0.3.0

Jun 25, 2026

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May 14, 2026

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Apr 23, 2026

0.2.1

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0.2.0

Apr 10, 2026

0.1.0

Mar 3, 2026

starlet 0.4.0

Starlet

Install

Quick start

Commands

Configuration

Starlet CLI tools

`starlet build` — full pipeline (tile + MVT)

`starlet tile` — partition a dataset only

`starlet mvt` — generate vector tiles from a tiled dataset

`starlet serve` — launch the tile server

`starlet info` — inspect a dataset

Server API

Notes & tips

Deploying a server

License

Key dates

2 maintainers

License

Requires

Provides Extra

Download files

Source Distribution

Built Distribution

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

starlet 0.4.0

Starlet

Install

Quick start

Commands

Configuration

Starlet CLI tools

starlet build — full pipeline (tile + MVT)

starlet tile — partition a dataset only

starlet mvt — generate vector tiles from a tiled dataset

starlet serve — launch the tile server

starlet info — inspect a dataset

Server API

Notes & tips

Deploying a server

License

Key dates

2 maintainers

License

Requires

Provides Extra

Download files

Source Distribution

Built Distribution

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

File details

File metadata

File hashes

Provenance

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

`starlet build` — full pipeline (tile + MVT)

`starlet tile` — partition a dataset only

`starlet mvt` — generate vector tiles from a tiled dataset

`starlet serve` — launch the tile server

`starlet info` — inspect a dataset