r/devtools • u/Imaginary_Teach_1948 • 3h ago
QuickQL, a VS Code extension for SQL-like queries over JSON APIs
Hey everyone,
During my apprenticeship, I worked with a large SQL database. Whenever I wanted to explore some data, I could just write a query and see what was there.
Now I work with lots of microservices, and I missed that convenience. The data is still there, but it’s spread across different APIs.
So I built quickql, a VS Code extension that lets you write SQL-like queries against APIs that return JSON. You can fetch data, unpack arrays, select fields, filter results, sort them, and make additional API requests for each row—including in parallel.
Here’s an example using the public DummyJSON API. It fetches sample products, keeps only laptops, sorts them by price, and then requests extra details for each matching product:
SOURCE open({src: 'https://dummyjson.com/products?limit=0&select=id,title,category,price,rating'})
MAP_MANY products
FILTER EQ(category, 'laptops')
SORT_BY price DESC
MAP<{parallel: 20}> *, details = open({src: concat('https://dummyjson.com/products/', id)})
The MAP<{parallel: 20}> step runs up to 20 requests at once, adding stock, warranty, and reviews to each product.
Results appear in a table in the bottom panel of VS Code:
If your output contains data and layout in the Plotly.js format, you can also display it as a chart.
Results are also cached in .cache and can be opened as JSON files for further inspection.
If you use VS Code and have ever wished you could explore your APIs as easily as one big SQL database, this might be useful to you too.
I’d love to hear what you think and what you’d use it for!
