Rusty Conover
Data infrastructure engineer and founder of Query.Farm. Building DuckDB extensions, scaling data platforms, and writing about what I learn along the way.
Recent Activity
View all →Rusty kept the gears turning across multiple fronts today: tinkering with flyctl infrastructure, diving into the depths of classified project and classified project behind closed doors, and lending a helpful hand to the DuckDB community by weighing in on issue #21342 regarding COMPRESS option support for in-memory databases. Meanwhile, steady progress marched on with commits to vgi-rpc-python, and classified operations hummed along across classified project and classified project. A day of measured momentum across the visible and invisible layers of the stack.
Rusty made a couple of surgical commits to community-extensions, keeping the DuckDB ecosystem humming along. Meanwhile, behind closed doors on classified project, mysterious operations were afoot—three classified events suggest something intriguing is brewing in the shadows. A day of quiet but purposeful progress.
Rusty had a hands-on day juggling multiple fronts: he was actively supporting the DuckDB community by troubleshooting Python replacement scans on duckdb-web (issue #6590) and helping iron out build configuration quirks in community-extensions (issue #1512 and PR #1513). Behind the scenes, classified operations on classified project, classified project, and classified project kept things interesting. The day saw solid momentum across rustyconover/community-extensions and adbc_scanner, with 9 commits spread strategically across the Query-farm ecosystem—a mix of community stewardship, infrastructure fixes, and undisclosed tinkering.
VGI Injector: A Tiny HTTPS Download-and-Execute Binary in Zig
I needed a self-contained binary that downloads a program over HTTPS and exec's it — small enough to run in a FROM scratch container with nothing else. Go and Rust couldn't get small enough. Zig could.
TIME Data Type Compatibility Across Databases
A survey of the TIME data type across 14 databases, comparing supported ranges, maximum values, and whether the special value 24:00:00 is accepted.
Telemetry for DuckDB Extensions Without the Pain
I open-sourced the telemetry client I use across Query.Farm's DuckDB extensions. It's two files, one function call, and it only collects platform and version info.
Releasing vgi-rpc: An RPC Framework Built on Apache Arrow
I built an RPC framework for Python that uses Apache Arrow IPC as the wire format and Python Protocol classes as the interface definition. No .proto files, no codegen — just type annotations.
Acronym-Aware Case Conversions in the DuckDB Inflector Extension
The Inflector extension for DuckDB now supports configurable acronyms, so case conversions preserve terms like HTML, API, and URL as fully uppercase — configured through a native DuckDB setting.
DuckDB Extension Development Workshop
DuckDB Developer Meeting #1 — Amsterdam, Netherlands
Building on Flight: Real-World Lessons from the DuckDB Airport Extension
Apache Arrow Summit 2025 — Paris, France
Query.Farm: Growing DuckDB Community Extensions
DuckDB Amsterdam Meetup #3 — Amsterdam, Netherlands
What I've Been Working On
Full activity log →I've spent the last three months deep in ecosystem stewardship across the DuckDB and Apache Arrow universes, balancing high-impact infrastructure work with targeted core improvements. February marked a turning point with a complete vgi-rpc ecosystem launch and systematic DuckDB 1.5 compatibility crusade, while January and December focused on dependency modernization, security hardening, and meaningful upstream contributions. Throughout, I've maintained a steady cadence of community support—from filing thoughtful bugs to shepherding new extensions into production.
- Led a DuckDB 1.5 compatibility push across 40+ extensions while shipping production-ready vgi-rpc implementations in Python, C++, Go, and TypeScript with unified documentation and branding.
- Contributed upstream Arrow enhancements across four languages, fixing silent data drops in RecordBatch IPC and adding custom metadata support for dictionary messages.
- Orchestrated systematic dependency updates and ecosystem gardening across 70+ community extensions while debugging core DuckDB internals and shipping practical features like Fair Weather Friend's PWA mode and dog-walking safety alerts.