← All work
Deployed Datera
Local-first data workspace
Connects messy data, answers questions in plain language or SQL, and shows exactly what it did at every step — running on your own machine against files you already have.
The problem
Ask a spreadsheet a question and the answer arrives with no provenance: no record of how the file was parsed, what the model was sent, or what SQL ran. The tools that do show their work are hosted, which means the data leaves.
My role
Product definition, architecture, and full implementation.
Decisions worth defending
- Read-only by default, enforced two independent ways — a statement guard using the database engine’s own parser, and read-only on every attach. A connected source cannot be granted writes at all.
- The model proposes and a person confirms: relationships, dictionary entries, normalization splits, and every write. Only confirmed definitions are ever sent to a model.
- Extensions are staged at install rather than fetched when a query runs. One downloaded silently the first time somebody opens a spreadsheet would fail offline, on a locked-down network, mid-demo.
Where it stands
Built and open source under Apache-2.0 — portable core, command-line binary, and desktop client, with 381 tests passing. Pre-launch: no paying customers yet.