From Concept to Craft: Designing a Universal SQLite Extension

Meet the Pandora project: a SQLite extension for the crazy ones, because everything could be a database. It invites you to query non-traditional sources as if they were tables, turning a directory tree or a REST endpoint into SQL objects. ^[1]

Core patterns The design centers on virtual tables, module interfaces, and data adapters. Virtual tables let SQLite map a source to a table schema; module interfaces define how to plug a new source; data adapters translate between source formats and SQL types. Together they form a blueprint for an “everything is a database” toolkit. ^[1]

Adapters in action - Directory tree to file metadata table — Maps a directory structure to a table of file paths, sizes, and timestamps. ^[1] - REST API as SQL tables — Exposes endpoints as SQL tables, with each resource becoming a row set. ^[1]

What this means for builders This approach keeps the SQL surface stable while the guts of each source stay modular, letting developers swap in new data providers without rewriting queries. It also nudges SQL tooling toward exploring diverse data without custom connectors. ^[1]

Closing thought: Pandora’s blueprint hints at a practical, extensible path for making almost anything queryable with SQL.

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