Database management

Database Management is the administrative PostgreSQL Metadata Catalog for an external PostgreSQL schema. Its binding and metadata are the sole database source used by workspace preprocessing and the NL→SQL session workflow.

What the catalog owns

For each workspace identity, an administrator may configure at most one Metadata Catalog binding. It holds the database name, schema, connection binding, write-only encrypted secrets, observed physical schema, optional curated descriptions, generated descriptions, and durable operation history.

It does not become the external source of truth. Tables, columns, types, defaults, nullability, primary-key positions, and ordered foreign-key pairs are observations of the source schema and cannot be manually created, renamed, or structurally edited. Descriptions are the editable metadata.

Database Management opens Fleet Ledger inside the normal application shell. Only one data grid is shown at a time: choose a database to see its tables, choose a table to see its columns, or open the database's relationships view. Use the emphasized back control or breadcrumb to return to the parent grid.

The KPI strip reports tables, columns, sensitive columns, relationships, and description coverage. It uses GET /catalog/metrics without databaseId for installation totals and with databaseId for the current database. Choose a selection-scoped operation from the action selector and then press Run; unavailable operations remain listed with an explanation. Row-specific actions are the icon controls in the final column, and each navigation or action icon has an immediate conceptual tooltip. An unconfigured workspace exposes Configure catalog directly on its row; there is no global database-creation action and the selected workspace cannot be changed in the configuration form.

The master grid keeps three independent states visible:

Configuration, object details, metadata editors, synchronization history, description history, sensitive-field review, and suggestion-run history open in right-side drawers backed by the production catalog APIs. Closing a history drawer does not cancel a durable background run. Existing permission checks, dirty/busy navigation guards, stale-state handling, and write-only secret behavior continue to apply.

For temporary comparison in development or staging, add ?db-ui=legacy; the parameter is honored only by Vite development or an environment explicitly configured with VITE_DB_MANAGEMENT_LEGACY=true. The separate prototype on port 5173 is not the application and remains available only until the integrated Fleet Ledger surface passes owner acceptance.

Configure and test a database

  1. Open Database Management and find the repository workspace marked Not configured.
  2. Choose Configure catalog on that row. Configure its PostgreSQL catalog binding with postgres_direct, rest_api, or ssh_tunnel and complete the binding fields that the chosen transport requires.
  3. Enter secrets only when replacing them. They remain write-only and are never returned by the application.
  4. Use Test connection whenever you want an informational connectivity check. Its result does not enable or disable catalog operations.

SSH uses a private key, optional key passphrase, mandatory known_hosts, and optional PostgreSQL TLS CA/server name. REST prefers POST /rpc/schema_snapshot; when it is absent, the catalog may use the same strict v1 snapshot through one read-only POST /rpc/run_query. An unavailable capability, malformed snapshot, or connector error applies no catalog changes. See the schema snapshot contract.

Synchronize authoritative schema metadata

Schema synchronization reads the external database and reconciles the installation-local catalog. It never changes the source database. Every synchronization attempts a fresh connection when it runs; an unreachable server or rejected credential fails that run without changing catalog data. The available synchronization scopes are tables, columns, relationships, and all, but the UI exposes them at different levels:

Location Action Effective scope
Database view Synchronize tables All tables in the selected database
Database view Synchronize relationships All physical foreign-key relationships in the selected database
Database view Synchronize all Tables, columns, and physical relationships in the selected database
Tables view Synchronize database tables All tables in the selected database. Selecting a table enables the action, but does not narrow its scope.
Tables view Synchronize columns for selected tables Columns belonging to the selected tables
Columns view Synchronize columns for this table All columns belonging to the table currently open. Selecting at least one column enables the action, but does not narrow its scope to that column.

There is no database-level column action and no synchronization action for an individual column. The selection requirement in the tables and columns views controls whether the action selector can be used; it is not always the same as the synchronization target. The Sync all button in the tables view is the direct shortcut for the full-database scope.

Connection tests are informational and are never a synchronization prerequisite. Each synchronization tests its own access while reading the schema; an unavailable connection fails that operation with a connector error. Only one catalog operation can be active for a database at a time; explicit cleanup shares this exclusion.

What a synchronization does

Every run first creates a durable queued operation and reads a schema snapshot. The scan reports these phases:

  1. Connect to the database.
  2. Read tables.
  3. Read columns and primary-key positions.
  4. Read foreign-key relationships.
  5. Calculate the planned catalog difference.
  6. Apply only the requested scope.

The scan currently reads the complete physical snapshot, including foreign keys, even when the requested scope is only tables or columns. This is required by the introspection contract and is why the log can mention foreign-key reading during a table synchronization. Reading those keys does not by itself create or update catalog relationships:

The run scans first and publishes a durable operation. If it detects a destructive difference, it requires confirmation and re-scans before applying. You can cancel before apply; completed and failed runs remain in history. The live log is delivered over SSE with a polling fallback.

The synchronization history records the requested scope, progress phases, planned changes, confirmation, result counts, and errors. Closing the history drawer does not cancel a running operation; it can be reopened from the database synchronization history control.

Explicit cleanup is different from source synchronization: administrators can clear selected table/relationship or column/relationship catalog metadata without changing the external source, the connection binding, or secrets. Deleting a table cascades to its columns and relationships.

Generate and consolidate descriptions

Generated descriptions can be requested for selected tables, selected columns, every eligible target, or targets with a missing generated description. The backend accepts one installation-wide run and processes targets sequentially. Every catalog column has a Sensitive flag, which defaults to false, including after a newly discovered column is synchronized. Before generation, an administrator can run local sensitivity analysis over the selected database, tables, or columns. The analysis combines structural metadata with bounded read-only inspection of source values. It uses no generative AI and no installation-catalog model. Assessments remain an unsaved draft until a human reviews and saves them; the reviewer may reverse any proposal.

The page exposes separate histories for description generation and sensitivity analysis. Analysis history stores the local policy version, scope, status, aggregate sensitive, non_sensitive, and unknown counts, timestamps, and sanitized events. It does not store source values, per-column proposals, NER spans, or worker diagnostics; closing an unsaved review discards that draft. The rules, time bounds, and optional CPU-only NER profile are documented in Local sensitivity analysis.

For a column with sensitive=false, the worker may read at most five source rows and five representative non-null values through a read-only connector. For sensitive=true, the source query does not request that column's values; deterministic plausible values derived only from its name and type take their place in the model prompt. The prompt does not identify those values as synthetic, so the model can still describe the field as if it had received representative data.

Each successful result is persisted immediately. Stop terminates the active helper but retains earlier results. A helper has at most one provider retry; three consecutively exhausted technical batches fail the run. Stale queued/running work is marked interrupted at startup and can be unlocked only when no local worker/helper is live. There is no automatic resume and no public description-generation CLI.

Review generated text before copying it into the curated Description field. Because the flag defaults to false, an administrator must review the classification and mark protected fields before starting generation. Changing a flag affects future generations only; existing generated or curated descriptions are not regenerated. Real and substituted samples remain transient and are not persisted or returned to the browser.

The database-level Copy generated description to descriptions action applies every non-empty AI-generated table and column description to the corresponding curated Description field in one atomic operation. It skips empty generated descriptions, reports aggregate copied and skipped counts, and retains the generated text. Because this can replace reviewed descriptions, the interface requires explicit confirmation before applying it.

The decisions behind this surface are ADRs 0001–0011 and the detailed acceptance record is AI catalog description generation acceptance.