DeltaScope

DeltaScope is an offline-first SQL audit engine for MySQL, TiDB, and PostgreSQL. The main product surfaces are deltascope, deltascope-server, and deltascope-mcp; PostgreSQL offline support is converged on the main archives for supported macOS and Linux platforms. It gives DBAs, application engineers, CI pipelines, and AI agents one consistent way to review DDL and DML before they reach a database.

Install

For macOS, prefer Homebrew. The repository installer script remains available as the generic portable installer for environments where Homebrew is not the right fit.

macOS (recommended):

brew tap Fanduzi/deltascope
brew install --cask deltascope

Generic installer:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fanduzi/DeltaScope/main/install.sh | sh

Pin a specific release:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fanduzi/DeltaScope/v0.56.0/install.sh | \
  DELTASCOPE_VERSION=v0.56.0 sh

Dialects & Release Archives

Every tag publishes archives named deltascope_<version>_<os>_<arch>.tar.gz containing deltascope, deltascope-server, and deltascope-mcp. All archives support MySQL, TiDB, and PostgreSQL offline audit via --dialect mysql|tidb|postgresql. The installer script, Homebrew Cask, and npm MCP launcher all resolve platform-specific archives from GitHub Release assets. See the audit capability matrix for per-dialect coverage and release notes for version-by-version changes.

Quick Start

Audit a risky DML statement:

deltascope audit --sql "delete from users"

Example excerpt:

Verdict: reject
Statements: 1
Blockers: 1
Warnings: 0
Notices: 0

Statement 1: DELETE
- [blocker] dml.where.require: UPDATE and DELETE statements must include a WHERE clause

Audit a CREATE TABLE statement:

deltascope audit --sql "create table tbl_users (id bigint unsigned not null auto_increment comment 'id', created_at datetime not null default current_timestamp comment 'created', updated_at datetime not null default current_timestamp on update current_timestamp comment 'updated', primary key (id)) comment='users' engine=InnoDB default charset=utf8mb4"

Example excerpt:

Verdict: review
Statements: 1
Blockers: 0
Warnings: 1
Notices: 0

Statement 1: CREATE TABLE
- [warning] ddl.column.default.require: column "id" should define a default value

Audit a file:

deltascope audit --file ./migrations/20260328_add_column.sql

Use JSON output for CI or agents:

deltascope audit \
  --sql "create table tbl_users (id bigint unsigned not null auto_increment comment 'id', created_at datetime not null default current_timestamp comment 'created', updated_at datetime not null default current_timestamp on update current_timestamp comment 'updated', primary key (id)) comment='users' engine=InnoDB default charset=utf8mb4" \
  --format json \
  --fail-on warning

Example JSON shape:

{
  "verdict": "review",
  "summary": {
    "statements": 1,
    "blockers": 0,
    "warnings": 1,
    "notices": 0
  },
  "statements": [ ... ],
  "context": {
    "mode": "offline",
    "dialect": "mysql",
    "dialect_source": "default"
  }
}

Audit a TiDB statement:

deltascope audit --dialect tidb --sql "alter table users add column email varchar(255) not null"

Audit a PostgreSQL CREATE TABLE with constraints:

deltascope audit \
  --dialect postgresql \
  --sql "create table orders (id bigint primary key, user_id bigint references users(id), amount numeric not null check (amount >= 0))"

When SQL looks like PostgreSQL but the dialect is set to MySQL, DeltaScope emits an advisory notice without auto-switching:

deltascope audit --sql "insert into users(id) values (1) returning id;"

To audit PostgreSQL SQL explicitly:

deltascope audit --dialect postgresql --sql "insert into users(id) values (1) returning id;"

Generate SARIF output for GitHub Code Scanning:

deltascope audit --file ./migrations.sql --format sarif > deltascope.sarif

Use CI-native output with any dialect:

deltascope audit --dialect postgresql --file ./migrations/20260409_add_index.sql --format github-actions

For GitLab CI, use --format gitlab-codequality and publish gl-code-quality-report.json as a Code Quality artifact; see use-deltascope-in-gitlab-ci.md.

DML Impact Estimation

For a selective DML such as DELETE FROM users WHERE id = 42, DeltaScope may add an impact object to the statement result. The object is conservative by design and reports estimated_rows, estimated_ratio, risk_level, confidence, source, reason_codes, and optional notes.

{
  "raw_sql": "DELETE FROM users WHERE id = 42",
  "impact": {
    "estimated_rows": 1,
    "estimated_ratio": 0.0001,
    "risk_level": "low",
    "confidence": "high",
    "source": "metadata",
    "reason_codes": ["pk_equality"],
    "notes": ["refined with table statistics"]
  }
}

Offline mode uses SQL shape only. Metadata-aware mode may refine the estimate with read-only table statistics. DeltaScope does not execute the DML and does not run EXPLAIN ANALYZE.

Audit with live metadata (instance-aware rules):

deltascope audit \
  --sql "alter table orders add index idx_status (status)" \
  --host 127.0.0.1 --port 3306 --user root --ask-password --schema app

See all shipped rules:

deltascope rules

Why DeltaScope

SQL mistakes are cheap to catch before they run and expensive after. DeltaScope gives you one consistent engine across local dev, CI, HTTP service, and MCP so the same policy applies everywhere — no per-tool rule duplication, no dialect surprises.

Key Features

• Create-table governance across identifiers, comments, primary keys, audit columns, charset/collation, indexes, and table options.
• Alter-table governance for destructive actions, compatibility checks, existence validation, and merge guidance.
• Object-lifecycle checks for CREATE VIEW, DROP TABLE, and TRUNCATE TABLE.
• DML protections for WHERE, LIMIT, ORDER BY, subqueries, join conditions, bulk insert patterns, denylisted objects, and conservative affected-row impact estimation.
• Stable product surfaces: deltascope CLI, deltascope-server, deltascope-mcp, and pkg/deltascope.
• deltascope-mcp is the official MCP stdio server and exposes audit_sql, describe_rule, list_rules, and get_capabilities.
• CI outputs preserve source file path and statement-start line numbers for GitHub Actions, SARIF, and GitLab Code Quality formats.

MCP Quick Start

No install required. The npm launcher fetches and runs the correct deltascope-mcp binary for your platform automatically.

Launcher requirements:

• Node.js 24 or newer
• supported native targets: darwin or linux, amd64 or arm64

Recommended launcher:

claude mcp add --scope user deltascope -- npx -y @fanduzi/deltascope-mcp
codex mcp add deltascope -- npx -y @fanduzi/deltascope-mcp

For raw stdio TOML, native deltascope-mcp, direct connection, connection_ref, proxy setup, and common errors, see Use DeltaScope MCP.

AI Agent Skill

Works in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and 40+ AI coding agents. Install once, get inline SQL review in every session.

DeltaScope ships a universal AI agent skill for inline SQL review during AI coding sessions. The skill detects whether DeltaScope is installed locally, calls it to audit your SQL, and surfaces findings with fix suggestions — without leaving your AI coding session.

# Install via npx skills (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 40+ AI agents)
npx skills add Fanduzi/DeltaScope --skill deltascope-review -a claude-code

Install globally (available across all projects):

npx skills add Fanduzi/DeltaScope --skill deltascope-review -a claude-code -g

Keep the skill up to date:

npx skills update

Then invoke in any supported AI session:

/deltascope-review

Paste a SQL snippet or point to a file — the agent audits it with DeltaScope and suggests fixes. See skills/README.md for full setup and usage.

More Docs

• Recipes
• Dev docs
• Reference docs
• Audit SQL with metadata
• Review DDL before migration
• Guard DML in CI
• Use with AI agents
• Inspect rules and config
• Troubleshoot metadata-aware audit

Documentation

• Admin docs
• Concept docs
• Dev docs
• Reference docs
• Audit capability matrix

Developer Workflows

• make test runs go test ./...
• make build produces all local binaries under bin/
• make build-linux produces Linux amd64 binaries under bin/
• make test-e2e-cli runs the Docker-backed metadata CLI smoke suite
• make pg-unit-test-gates runs the PostgreSQL-tagged unit gate set
• make pg-e2e-gates runs the Docker-backed PostgreSQL CLI, HTTP, and MCP suites
• make pg-confidence-gates runs the canonical PostgreSQL confidence closure
• docs/dev/testing.md covers the full target set

HTTP Service

Run the HTTP adapter over the same audit engine:

deltascope-server -listen 127.0.0.1:8083

Endpoints:

• GET /healthz
• GET /version
• POST /v1/audit

POST /v1/audit supports both offline JSON audit requests and metadata-aware requests with an optional connection block. The HTTP response keeps the public audit result body and adds a context block. See the full contract in HTTP API reference.

Library Usage

result, err := deltascope.Audit(ctx, deltascope.Request{
    SQL:     "delete from users",
    Dialect: deltascope.DialectMySQL,
})

The stable public API lives in pkg/deltascope.

Architecture

DeltaScope keeps one audit path and exposes it through multiple entrypoints. Product-level and implementation-level diagrams live in docs/concept/architecture.md and docs/dev/architecture.md.

Modules