sqlite-mcp

Point Claude at any SQLite database with a single 1 MB binary.

claude mcp add my-db /path/to/sqlite-mcp /path/to/database.db

No Python, no Node, no runtime. One statically linked executable with SQLite compiled in: about 1 MB stripped. A full cold-process session (initialize, handshake, one SELECT) completes in about 2 ms with 2.9 MB peak memory; the reference Python server takes about 410 ms and 64 MB for the same session, the most-used npm server about 210 ms and 84 MB.

The database is opened read-only. Writes fail at the SQLite layer, so it is safe to hand an LLM.

What it exposes

query tool	Run SQL, get rows back as pipe-separated text with a header. max_rows defaults to 100; truncation is reported. SQL errors come back as tool errors with the SQLite message.
list_tables tool	Enumerate tables.
sqlite://table/<name> resources	Each table's CREATE statement, so the model can read schemas before writing queries.

Install

Download a binary from releases (Linux x86_64/aarch64 static, macOS x86_64/aarch64, Windows x86_64), or build from source:

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSmall   # requires Zig 0.16.0

The build fetches the SQLite amalgamation and the zig-mcp-sdk through the Zig package manager; there are no system dependencies.

Claude Code

claude mcp add my-db /path/to/sqlite-mcp /path/to/database.db

Claude Desktop / Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-db": {
      "command": "/path/to/sqlite-mcp",
      "args": ["/path/to/database.db"]
    }
  }
}

Example session

> what tables are in this database?
  list_tables -> orders, users

> who spent the most?
  query("SELECT u.name, SUM(o.total) AS spent FROM users u
         JOIN orders o ON o.user_id = u.id
         GROUP BY u.id ORDER BY spent DESC LIMIT 1")
  -> Alan Turing | 42.0

How it works

Built with zig-mcp-sdk. The tool schemas are generated at compile time from the argument structs, the SQLite amalgamation is compiled into the binary by Zig's C compiler, and every release is conformance-tested in CI: handshake, queries, NULL rendering, truncation, write rejection, schema resources.

License

MIT