VGI (Vector Gateway Interface)

Apache Arrow-based protocol for extending DuckDB using any language.
No C++/C/Zig/Rust or compilation/linking required (unless you want to).

Created by Query.Farm

See It in Action

# my_worker.py
from typing import Annotated
from vgi import ScalarFunction, Param, Returns, Worker
import pyarrow as pa
import pyarrow.compute as pc

class Greeting(ScalarFunction):
    """Generate a greeting for each name."""

    @classmethod
    def compute(
        cls,
        name: Annotated[pa.StringArray, Param(doc="Column containing names")],
    ) -> Annotated[pa.StringArray, Returns()]:
        return pc.binary_join_element_wise("Hello, ", name, "!")

class MyWorker(Worker):
    functions = [Greeting]

if __name__ == "__main__":
    MyWorker().run()

-- First time only.
INSTALL vgi FROM COMMUNITY;
LOAD vgi;
ATTACH 'my_worker' (TYPE 'vgi', LOCATION './my_worker.py');

SELECT greeting(name) FROM users;
-- "Hello, Alice!"
-- "Hello, Bob!"

Or you can launch the DuckDB CLI with

duckdb vgi:my_worker.py to start a new session with the functions you just added.

That's it. No C++ compilation, no extension versioning, no complex build process. Just a Python script that DuckDB can call.

Installation

pip install vgi

Or with uv:

uv add vgi

Why VGI?

VGI lets you extend DuckDB with Python functions that run in separate processes, communicating via Apache Arrow IPC. This means:

Use cases:

• Call REST APIs or external services from SQL
• Run ML inference (PyTorch, scikit-learn, etc.)
• Process data with Python libraries (pandas, numpy)
• Build custom ETL transforms
• Create domain-specific functions for your team
• Expose external data sources as queryable tables and views

Quick Start

Step 1: Create a Worker

A worker is a Python script that defines one or more functions:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# my_worker.py
from typing import Annotated
import pyarrow as pa
import pyarrow.compute as pc
from vgi import ScalarFunction, Param, Returns, Worker


class UpperCase(ScalarFunction):
    """Convert string values to uppercase."""

    @classmethod
    def compute(
        cls,
        value: Annotated[pa.StringArray, Param(doc="String value to uppercase")],
    ) -> Annotated[pa.StringArray, Returns()]:
        return pc.utf8_upper(value)


class MyWorker(Worker):
    catalog_name = "my_funcs"
    functions = [UpperCase]


if __name__ == "__main__":
    MyWorker().run()

Step 2: Use from DuckDB

-- Attach the worker as a catalog
ATTACH 'my_funcs' (TYPE 'vgi', LOCATION './my_worker.py');

-- Call your function
SELECT upper_case(name) FROM users;

-- Use in complex queries
SELECT id, upper_case(status) as status
FROM orders
WHERE created_at > '2024-01-01';

Step 3: There is no step 3

Your function is now available in DuckDB. Ship the Python script to your team, and they can use it immediately.

Going Further: Type-Safe Arguments

For production use, you'll want type validation. Use Param with type_bound to ensure columns have the correct type:

from typing import Annotated
from vgi import ScalarFunction, Param, Returns, Worker
import pyarrow as pa
import pyarrow.compute as pc


class AddValues(ScalarFunction):
    """Add two integer values together."""

    @classmethod
    def compute(
        cls,
        left: Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Param(type_bound=pa.types.is_integer, doc="First integer value")],
        right: Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Param(type_bound=pa.types.is_integer, doc="Second integer value")],
    ) -> Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Returns()]:
        return pc.add(left, right)

SELECT add_values(price, tax) as total FROM orders;

-- This would fail at bind time with a clear error:
-- SELECT add_values(name, price) FROM orders;
-- Error: Column 'name' has type string, expected integer

Key features of the Param/Returns API:

• Types are inferred from PyArrow array annotations (pa.Int64Array -> pa.int64())
• type_bound validates the column's Arrow type at bind time
• ConstParam receives scalar values (not columns) from SQL arguments
• Returns declares the output type

Function Types

VGI supports three function types:

Scalar Functions

Transform each row independently. Output has the same number of rows as input.

class Double(ScalarFunction):
    """Double an integer value."""

    @classmethod
    def compute(
        cls,
        value: Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Param(doc="Value to double")],
    ) -> Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Returns()]:
        return pc.multiply(value, 2)

Table Functions

Generate output data from arguments (no input table). Each call to process() emits a batch via out.emit() or signals completion via out.finish().

from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import Annotated, ClassVar
import pyarrow as pa
from vgi import TableFunctionGenerator, Arg
from vgi.table_function import ProcessParams, OutputCollector


@dataclass
class CounterState:
    remaining: int
    current: int = 0


class Counter(TableFunctionGenerator):
    """Generate a sequence of integers."""

    count: Annotated[int, Arg(0, doc="Number of rows to generate")]
    FIXED_SCHEMA: ClassVar[pa.Schema] = pa.schema([("n", pa.int64())])

    @classmethod
    def initial_state(cls, params: ProcessParams) -> CounterState:
        return CounterState(remaining=params.args.count)

    @classmethod
    def process(cls, params: ProcessParams, state: CounterState, out: OutputCollector) -> None:
        if state.remaining <= 0:
            out.finish()
            return
        batch_size = min(state.remaining, 1000)
        values = list(range(state.current, state.current + batch_size))
        out.emit(pa.RecordBatch.from_pydict({"n": values}, schema=params.output_schema))
        state.current += batch_size
        state.remaining -= batch_size

Table-In-Out Functions

Transform or aggregate input data. Override transform() for per-batch processing and finish() for final output after all input is consumed.

import pyarrow as pa
import pyarrow.compute as pc
from vgi import TableInOutFunction


class FilterPositive(TableInOutFunction):
    """Keep only rows where all numeric columns are positive."""

    @property
    def output_schema(self) -> pa.Schema:
        return self.input_schema

    def transform(self, batch: pa.RecordBatch) -> pa.RecordBatch:
        mask = None
        for i, field in enumerate(batch.schema):
            if pa.types.is_integer(field.type) or pa.types.is_floating(field.type):
                col_mask = pc.greater(batch.column(i), 0)
                mask = col_mask if mask is None else pc.and_(mask, col_mask)
        if mask is not None:
            return pc.filter(batch, mask)
        return batch

Beyond Functions: Full Catalog Support

VGI workers can expose more than just functions. A worker can provide a complete database catalog with:

• Schemas - Organize objects into namespaces
• Tables - Expose external data as queryable tables
• Views - Define SQL views over your data
• Functions - Scalar, table, and table-in-out functions

ATTACH 'external_db' (TYPE 'vgi', LOCATION './my_catalog_worker.py');

-- Query tables from the attached catalog
SELECT * FROM external_db.main.users;

-- Use views
SELECT * FROM external_db.analytics.daily_summary;

-- Call functions
SELECT external_db.main.transform(col) FROM my_table;

This enables VGI workers to act as bridges to external systems—databases, APIs, file systems—presenting them as native DuckDB catalogs.

See Catalog Interface for implementation details.

Parallel Execution

Functions can run across multiple worker processes. The client automatically distributes input batches round-robin across workers and collects results.

See Function API Reference for advanced patterns like distributed aggregation.

Error Handling

Errors in your functions propagate to DuckDB with clear messages:

@classmethod
def compute(cls, value: Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Param()]) -> Annotated[pa.Int64Array, Returns()]:
    raise ValueError("Something went wrong")

SELECT my_func(col) FROM my_table;
-- Error: Something went wrong

Type bound violations are caught at bind time (before processing starts):

SELECT add_values(name, price) FROM orders;
-- Error: Argument 'left': Column 'name' has type string,
--        but type bound requires: is_integer

Debugging Worker Failures

When a worker fails, the Python traceback is written to stderr. By default, the client captures this stderr and includes it in the error message (last 50 lines), so you get the full context:

ClientError: Worker Exception: function 'my_func' raised ValueError

Worker stderr:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "my_worker.py", line 42, in compute
    ...
ValueError: Something went wrong

For real-time debugging, set VGI_WORKER_DEBUG=1 to stream worker logs directly to your terminal and enable DEBUG-level logging:

VGI_WORKER_DEBUG=1 python my_script.py

This is especially useful when integrating from C++ or other clients where stderr might otherwise be lost.

Testing Your Functions

Use the VGI client for integration tests:

from vgi.client import Client
from vgi import Arguments
import pyarrow as pa

batch = pa.RecordBatch.from_pydict({"name": ["alice", "bob"]})

with Client("./my_worker.py") as client:
    results = list(client.scalar_function(
        function_name="upper_case",
        input=iter([batch]),
        arguments=Arguments(positional=[pa.scalar("name")]),
    ))

assert results[0]["result"].to_pylist() == ["ALICE", "BOB"]

Protocol Overview

VGI uses vgi_rpc, an Apache Arrow IPC-based RPC framework, for all client-worker communication over stdin/stdout pipes:

Client                              Worker
  │                                   │
  │──── bind(request) ──────────────▶ │  Function name, args, input schema
  │◀─── BindResponse ────────────────  │  Output schema, opaque data
  │                                   │
  │──── init(request) ──────────────▶ │  Start processing stream
  │◀─── Stream header ───────────────  │  execution_id, max_workers
  │                                   │
  │──── exchange(batch1) ───────────▶ │
  │◀─── output batch 1 ──────────────  │  transform(batch)
  │         ...                       │
  │──── [stream close] ─────────────▶ │  Signal end of input
  │                                   │
  │──── init(phase=FINALIZE) ───────▶ │  Start finalize stream
  │◀─── final output batches ────────  │  finish() results
  └───────────────────────────────────┘

External Batch Offloading (Demo Storage)

When record batches are too large for HTTP request/response bodies, VGI supports externalizing them to blob storage. The server replaces oversized batches with pointer batches containing a URL, and the client transparently fetches the data.

The example HTTP server includes a built-in demo blob store for testing this without S3 or any cloud infrastructure:

# Start with demo storage (4 KiB threshold for testing)
vgi-fixture-http --demo-storage --externalize-threshold-bytes 4096

# With zstd compression
vgi-fixture-http --demo-storage --externalize-threshold-bytes 4096 --externalize-compression zstd

When --demo-storage is enabled:

• Batches exceeding --externalize-threshold-bytes are stored in-memory and served from /__blobs__/{id} endpoints on the same server
• Clients can request upload URLs for large inputs via the __upload_url__ endpoint
• The server advertises VGI-Max-Request-Bytes and rejects oversized requests with 413

For production use, implement the ExternalStorage protocol from vgi_rpc against your cloud storage (S3, GCS, etc.). The example server also supports S3 via --s3-bucket.

Documentation

• Function Lifecycle - Bind, init, process, finalize
• Metadata API - Function introspection
• Function API Reference - Advanced function patterns
• Catalog Interface - DuckDB ATTACH integration

Logging

Workers support --debug, --log-level, --log-format, and --log-logger options:

# Enable debug logging
vgi-fixture-worker --debug

# JSON-formatted logs for structured pipelines
vgi-fixture-worker --log-format json

# Target a specific logger
vgi-fixture-worker --log-level DEBUG --log-logger vgi.worker

You can also use the VGI_WORKER_DEBUG=1 environment variable, which enables --debug on the worker and stderr passthrough on the client without changing any code or CLI flags:

VGI_WORKER_DEBUG=1 python my_script.py

See CLI Reference for the full list of loggers and options.

Development

git clone https://github.com/query-farm/vgi-python
cd vgi-python

uv sync --all-extras        # Install dependencies
uv run pytest -n auto       # Run tests
uv run ruff check --fix .   # Lint
uv run ruff format .        # Format
uv run mypy vgi/            # Type check

Requirements

• Python >= 3.12.4
• pyarrow
• DuckDB (for SQL integration)

License

Copyright (c) 2025, 2026 Query Farm LLC.

Licensed under the Query Farm Source-Available License, Version 1.0 — see LICENSE for the binding terms. In summary (the LICENSE text governs):

• ✅ Use, copy, modify, and redistribute the code freely, including in production and for commercial purposes — your own internal use, and building products and services on top of VGI.
• 🚫 Not permitted without a separate commercial license: offering a competing VGI-equivalent product or service to third parties (hosted, embedded, or as-a-service), or operating a commercial marketplace for such services.
• ⏳ Each released version converts to the Apache License, Version 2.0, ten years after its public release.

For a commercial license or any licensing questions, contact hello@query.farm.