Rusty Conover

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.

DuckDB Apache Arrow Rust C++ TypeScript

Recent Activity

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3/10

Rusty kept things lean and focused today, making a single commit to vgi-rpc-website while channeling his open-source stewardship energy toward the DuckDB community. He weighed in twice on issue #6590 in duckdb-web, offering guidance on Python replacement scans with plain objects—a nice reminder that sometimes the most valuable work happens in the comments section, not the commit log.

1 commits
duckdb-web + private
4/10

Rusty kept things mysterious today, splitting focus between two classified operations: classified project received the lion's share of attention with three commits worth of tinkering, while classified project got a quick check-in behind closed doors. No public repos were touched, but there's clearly some interesting work happening in the shadows—the kind that keeps a developer's schedule delightfully unpredictable.

3 commits
dead-heat + private
5/10

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.

4 commits
flyctl duckdb clerk-webhook-receiver + private

Posts & Events

Query.Farm

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.

DuckDB

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.

Query.Farm

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.

Query.Farm

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.

DuckDB

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

DuckDB Extension Development Workshop

DuckDB Developer Meeting #1 — Amsterdam, Netherlands

Apache Arrow

Building on Flight: Real-World Lessons from the DuckDB Airport Extension

Apache Arrow Summit 2025 — Paris, France

Query.Farm

Query.Farm: Growing DuckDB Community Extensions

DuckDB Amsterdam Meetup #3 — Amsterdam, Netherlands

What I've Been Working On

Full activity log →

I've been deep in infrastructure stewardship and ecosystem expansion these past months, leading compatibility crusades across the DuckDB extension portfolio while shipping production-ready systems like the vgi-rpc ecosystem. My work spans from low-level performance archaeology and upstream Apache Arrow enhancements to high-level community stewardship—maintaining dozens of repositories while balancing transparent open-source contributions with classified operations. February culminated in a complete visual identity rollout and multi-language RPC implementation, but the real theme across January through February has been systematic ecosystem gardening at scale.

  • Spearheaded DuckDB 1.5 compatibility across 40+ extensions with standardized documentation, future-proofing the entire Query-farm portfolio while opening upstream enhancements to Apache Arrow across JavaScript, Swift, Rust, and Go.
  • Shipped production-ready vgi-rpc implementations in Python, C++, Go, and TypeScript with unified branding, comprehensive documentation infrastructure, and Apache 2.0 licensing across the ecosystem.
  • Enhanced Fair Weather Friend with PWA support, stargazing mode, cycling weather scoring, and dog walking mode with paw safety alerts—transforming a utility into a delightfully practical application.