Technology1 min read

Show HN: db-branch – database branches in seconds for AI agents and CI, via ZFS

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In short

Released under the Apache-2.0 license, db-branch uses ZFS clones to launch rapid database copies for continuous integration and agentic sandboxes without duplicating underlying data. It incorporates an integrated Model Context Protocol server that lets autonomous language models run risky operations and tear down instances safely. Benchmarks on a three-node cluster demonstrate PostgreSQL branches generating in about 0.5 seconds, while MySQL branches take around 3 seconds. The platform also offers administrative tools such as time-to-live expiration flags, branch resets, checkpoints, and automated upgrade rollbacks.

Key points

  • Copy-on-write cloning on self-hosted infrastructure allows developers to spin up isolated…: Copy-on-write cloning on self-hosted infrastructure allows developers to spin up isolated database environments in seconds without storage bloat.
  • Automated lifecycle tools like time-to-live expiration and branch resets provide safe tes…: Automated lifecycle tools like time-to-live expiration and branch resets provide safe testing sandboxes for automated workflows and migration scripts.
  • Cross-platform local evaluation is available through an Ubuntu virtual machine via Multip…: Cross-platform local evaluation is available through an Ubuntu virtual machine via Multipass with full feature access for 30 days.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Instant database branches for MySQL and PostgreSQL, on your own servers.

Test a migration, let an AI agent loose, or give every pull request its own copy of the database. db-branch creates a copy-on-write branch of a large database in seconds, with nothing copied. Break it, reset it, throw it away. Built on ZFS clones, self-hosted, Apache-2.0.

Status: Beta. db-branch is usable today, but APIs and command-line details may still change before 1.0. It is an independent open-source project, built from scratch.

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In your browser, 0 minutes. A live console demo runs entirely in the page (nothing real is created): https://demo.db-branch.com/

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On a Mac or Windows machine, about 2 minutes. db-branch needs Linux and ZFS, so run it in an Ubuntu VM with Multipass. One command makes the VM, installs db-branch, initialises it on a file-backed ZFS pool and loads a small sample base,

shop

(MySQL 8.4):multipass launch 24.04 --name db-branch-eval --memory 4G --disk 30G --timeout 900 \ --cloud-init https://raw.githubusercontent.com/db-branch/db-branch/main/scripts/eval-cloud-init.yaml multipass exec db-branch-eval -- cloud-init status --wait # wait for the setup (about two minutes) multipass exec db-branch-eval…

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