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 went on a major multi-repo sprint today, spreading 26 commits across the RPC ecosystem like a distributed systems architect on a mission. The star of the show was the vgi-rpc-go, vgi-rpc-python, and vgi-rpc-typescript trio, which collectively absorbed most of the action—clearly someone's syncing up the polyglot RPC stack. Behind closed doors, classified operations in classified project, classified project, and classified project kept things interesting. On the open-source stewardship front, Rusty kicked off issue #21533 on duckdb proposing an OPTIONS addition to HTTPUtil's RequestType enum, while also fielding a user request on httpclient (issue #31) about v1.5.0 compatibility. Fresh repo lindel_video was born today, and community extension work on duckdb/community-extensions rounded out the day with PRs in motion. It was the kind of day where Rusty's fingers did the talking across eight different repositories.
Rusty wrapped up the hashfuncs extension with some housekeeping, merging PR #4 and updating the docs to showcase the new xxh3_128_hex() function in all its hex-encoded glory. Behind the scenes, classified operations hummed along across classified project, classified project, classified project, and classified project—a mysterious quartet of commits that shall remain forever shrouded in intrigue. Meanwhile, Rusty flexed his open-source stewardship muscles by providing feedback on DuckDB's profiler improvements (PR #21502) and helping the community-extensions crew get http_client shipshape for v1.15.0 (PR #1554), proving once again that great code is a team sport.
Rusty was a whirlwind across the Query-farm ecosystem today, orchestrating version bumps and feature refinements like a conductor fine-tuning an orchestra. He tackled OAuth enhancements in vgi-rpc-typescript (adding device code flow support and signing algorithm flexibility), knocked out a pesky Linux ARM64 build issue in inflector, and introduced a shiny new strip_accents option for diacritics removal—because sometimes you want your text squeaky clean. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, classified project, classified project, classified project, classified project, classified project, and classified project received classified attention across 17 commits of mysterious importance. He also played the gracious open-source steward, fielding community questions on httpserver (issue #50), httpclient (issue #31), lindel (issue #7), and inflector (issue #4), while shepherding three PRs (PR #1557, PR #1556, PR #1555) through the DuckDB community-extensions pipeline to keep those extension versions fresh.
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 been deep in ecosystem stewardship over the past few months, modernizing the DuckDB extension landscape while contributing meaningful improvements upstream to Apache Arrow and DuckDB core. February's focus on future-proofing extensions for DuckDB 1.5 compatibility and shipping a production-ready vgi-rpc ecosystem across four languages showcased the balance between systematic infrastructure work and delightful product polish. Throughout this period, I've maintained momentum on community contributions while tackling performance optimization challenges and addressing real production concerns like silent data drops in Arrow serialization.
- Led a DuckDB 1.5 compatibility effort across 40+ extensions, standardizing documentation and APIs while opening upstream contributions to Apache Arrow for custom metadata support across JavaScript, Swift, Rust, and Go.
- Shipped Fair Weather Friend with PWA support and specialized modes (stargazing, cycling, dog walking), and launched a complete vgi-rpc ecosystem with unified branding, documentation sites, and multi-language implementations.
- Balanced public open-source work with classified operations across multiple initiatives, maintaining strong community stewardship while hunting down production bugs and performance quirks in DuckDB internals.