sqlfmt

An opinionated SQL formatter written in Rust. Ported from Python sqlfmt, optimized for Snowflake and DuckDB.

Installation

Download a prebuilt binary

Prebuilt binaries are available for Linux and macOS from GitHub Releases.

Linux (x86_64):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/datastx/sqlfmt-rust/releases/latest/download/sqlfmt-v0.1.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz \
  | tar xz
sudo mv sqlfmt-v0.1.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/sqlfmt /usr/local/bin/

Linux (aarch64 / ARM64):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/datastx/sqlfmt-rust/releases/latest/download/sqlfmt-v0.1.0-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz \
  | tar xz
sudo mv sqlfmt-v0.1.0-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl/sqlfmt /usr/local/bin/

macOS (Apple Silicon):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/datastx/sqlfmt-rust/releases/latest/download/sqlfmt-v0.1.0-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz \
  | tar xz
sudo mv sqlfmt-v0.1.0-aarch64-apple-darwin/sqlfmt /usr/local/bin/

macOS (Intel):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/datastx/sqlfmt-rust/releases/latest/download/sqlfmt-v0.1.0-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz \
  | tar xz
sudo mv sqlfmt-v0.1.0-x86_64-apple-darwin/sqlfmt /usr/local/bin/

Verify the download

Each release includes a checksums-sha256.txt file. After downloading, verify:

sha256sum -c checksums-sha256.txt

Build from source

Requires Rust 1.70+.

git clone https://github.com/datastx/sqlfmt-rust.git
cd sqlfmt-rust
cargo install --path .

Usage

Format files or directories in place:

sqlfmt .
sqlfmt queries/
sqlfmt path/to/query.sql

Read from stdin, write to stdout:

echo "SELECT   a,b FROM t WHERE x=1" | sqlfmt -

Check formatting without modifying files (exit code 1 if changes needed):

sqlfmt --check .

Show a diff of what would change:

sqlfmt --diff .

Options

Usage: sqlfmt [OPTIONS] <FILES>...

Arguments:
  <FILES>...  Files or directories to format. Use "-" to read from stdin

Options:
  -l, --line-length <N>       Maximum line length [default: 88]
  -d, --dialect <DIALECT>     SQL dialect: polyglot, duckdb, clickhouse [default: polyglot]
      --check                 Check formatting without writing changes
      --diff                  Show formatting diff
      --fast                  Skip safety equivalence check (faster)
      --no-jinjafmt           Disable Jinja template formatting
      --exclude <PATTERN>     Glob patterns to exclude
  -t, --threads <N>           Number of threads (0 = all cores) [default: 0]
      --single-process        Disable multi-threaded processing
  -v, --verbose               Verbose output
  -q, --quiet                 Quiet output (errors only)
      --no-progressbar        Disable progress bar
      --config <PATH>         Path to config file (pyproject.toml or sqlfmt.toml)
  -h, --help                  Print help
  -V, --version               Print version

Environment variables

You can set environment variables to enable performance options without passing flags on every invocation:

Variable	Equivalent flag	Description
SQLFMT_FAST=1	--fast	Skip the safety equivalence check for faster formatting
SQLFMT_THREADS=N	--threads N	Number of parallel threads (0 = all cores)

Accepted values for SQLFMT_FAST: 1, true, yes (case-insensitive). CLI flags always take precedence over environment variables.

# Format a large directory as fast as possible
export SQLFMT_FAST=1
export SQLFMT_THREADS=8
sqlfmt .

Configuration file

sqlfmt reads settings from sqlfmt.toml or the [tool.sqlfmt] section of pyproject.toml:

# sqlfmt.toml
line_length = 100
dialect = "duckdb"
exclude = ["migrations/**"]
threads = 4

Supported platforms

Platform	Architecture	Binary target
Linux	x86_64	x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
Linux	aarch64	aarch64-unknown-linux-musl
macOS (Apple Silicon)	aarch64	aarch64-apple-darwin
macOS (Intel)	x86_64	x86_64-apple-darwin

Linux binaries are statically linked (musl) and have no runtime dependencies.

License

Apache-2.0