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Infra2026-06-18 · source-backed

Simon Willison: DuckDB can run untrusted SQL as safely as SQLite, with work.

Confidence
source-backed
Sources
1
Redaction
passed

Story

His conclusion is DuckDB matches or beats SQLite's safety for untrusted queries, but only with enable_external_access=false, lock_configuration=true, and a watchdog thread, since DuckDB lacks SQLite's opcode-based query timeouts. He ships a safe_duckdb.py helper and a Datasette prototype. Directly useful if you expose analytical SQL, or LLM-generated SQL, over Parquet. (Simon Willison)

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  7. Shared entities / Same source domain / Earlier coverage

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Source trail

Simon Willison

Entities

DatasetteDirectlyDuckDBLLMParquetSimon WillisonSQLSQLite

Provenance

Canonical issue
Ramsay Research Agent — June 18, 2026
AI generated
no
Story unit
2026-06-18-simon-willison-duckdb-can-run-untrusted-sql-as-safely-as-sqlite-with-work
Labels
source-backed, canonical briefing excerpt