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Airport Data Source

Airport data sources allow you to attach remote DuckDB catalogs via the DuckDB Airport extension using Arrow Flight gRPC. This enables querying tables and calling functions served by any Airport-compatible endpoint.

Registration​

mutation {
  core {
    insert_data_sources(data: {
      name: "remote_db"
      type: "airport"
      prefix: "remote"
      as_module: true
      path: "grpc+tls://airport.example.com:9000/my_database?auth_token=${secret:AIRPORT_TOKEN}"
    }) { name }
  }
}

Path Format​

<protocol>://<host>[:<port>]/<database>[?auth_token=<token>]
ComponentRequiredDescription
protocolyesgrpc (plaintext) or grpc+tls (TLS encrypted)
hostyesAirport server address
portnoServer port
databaseyesName of the remote database to attach
auth_tokennoAuthentication token. Supports ${secret:ENV_VAR} syntax

Examples​

# Plaintext gRPC, no auth
grpc://localhost:9000/my_database

# TLS with auth token
grpc+tls://airport.example.com:9000/analytics?auth_token=${secret:AIRPORT_TOKEN}

# TLS, default port
grpc+tls://airport.example.com/warehouse

How It Works​

When an Airport data source is attached, hugr:

  1. Parses the DSN to extract protocol, host, port, database name, and optional auth token
  2. Creates a DuckDB secret with the auth token (if provided)
  3. Executes ATTACH '<database>' AS <name> (TYPE AIRPORT, LOCATION '<location>') on the embedded DuckDB engine

The remote catalog's tables and functions become available through the hugr GraphQL schema, just like any other relational data source.

Schema Definition​

Airport data sources support both:

  • Self-defined schema (self_defined: true) — automatically discovers tables and views from the remote catalog
  • Catalog-based schema — use GraphQL SDL files to define the schema manually, like any other data source

See Also​