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alchemy-utils 0.1a0

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  • Simon Willison released alchemy-utils 0.1a0, a new Python library and CLI utility designed as a database-agnostic version of sqlite-utils, leveraging SQLAlchemy to support multiple database engines including PostgreSQL, SQLite, and DuckDB.
  • The project was rapidly prototyped with significant assistance from AI coding agents (Codex and GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra), requiring “very few follow-up prompts” to reach an alpha release state, showcasing AI’s efficiency in generating functional code.
  • alchemy-utils replicates core sqlite-utils API methods (e.g., insert, upsert, create, update, table introspection) and provides a CLI for practical tasks, such as listing PostgreSQL table rows or importing large CSV files into DuckDB, with AI even optimizing the latter’s performance from an hour to 35 seconds.