You know the command exists. You've run it a dozen times. But every single time you need to see what's actually running on your database, you end up typing some variant of:
SELECT pid, state, query, wait_event_type
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE state != 'idle' AND pid != pg_backend_pid();
…and then googling pg_stat_activity columns
halfway through because you forgot whether it's wait_event
or wait_event_type
.
I got tired of that. So I built ** cli2ui** — a small web UI that turns the database CLI commands you keep half-remembering into buttons.
psql -c "SELECT * FROM pg_stat_activity" → one "running queries" button
pg_dump -t users mydb → one "back up this table" button
SELECT pg_terminate_backend(pid) → one "kill this process" button
No AI. No SaaS. No magic. It runs on your machine, right next to your database, and your connection credentials never leave your network.
It's built for app developers and solo developers — not DBAs. The pitch is "you're looking at your tables 3 minutes after deciding to": docker compose up
, connect, done. No install marathon, no connection-wizard maze, no digging through nested trees.
A few of the things it puts one click away (PostgreSQL today):
\d table
), and a row preview.SET TRANSACTION READ ONLY
transaction (so the statement_timeout
and a 1000-row cap. Write mode is opt-in and takes a whole-database safety snapshot pg_stat_activity
and the blocking tree from pg_locks
pg_blocking_pids
, with one-click cancel / kill.wal_level
/ max_wal_senders
), connected standbys, slot create/drop, and a copy-paste pg_basebackup
command.pg_settings
-
ALTER SYSTEM SET -
pg_reload_conf()
, with reload-vs-restart badges.pg_dump
snapshots before every destructive change, restore of an uploaded dump streamed to the client tool (not buffered in memory).The UI ships in English and Japanese with a header toggle.
cli2ui has no authentication layer. That sounds reckless until you look at the threat model: it's a trusted local tool sitting next to your database, not a multi-tenant service on the internet. No accounts, no outbound calls, no AI. Your DB credentials stay on your machine.
The moment you'd hold someone's database connection info on a server, the liability-and-encryption story swallows the whole project. Staying local keeps it honest — and the README is very loud about "don't expose this to an untrusted network."
Being local doesn't mean being careless:
psycopg2.sql.Identifier
; the few raw-SQL spots (e.g. index access method, column type) go through fixed allow-lists.autocommit=False
and always ROLLBACK
.localhost
and drop your database), and X-Frame-Options: DENY
stops clickjacking the destructive buttons.node_modules
. Panels are htmx partials; the page swaps innerHTML
and that's the whole interaction model.That last bit is the thing I'm happiest about: adding a feature is small and mechanical, which is why the PostgreSQL coverage got deep instead of wide.
git clone https://github.com/MR-TABATA/cli2ui
cd cli2ui
docker compose up
The connection form is pre-filled to point at a bundled sample database — hit Connect and you're looking at its tables. To point at your own PostgreSQL, change the form fields. (Connecting to a database in another container trips everyone up — there's a whole networking guide for that.)
It's MIT-licensed and the code is on GitHub. The landing page is at ** cli2ui.com**.
If you've ever rage-googled pg_stat_replication
columns, I'd love your feedback — especially on what command you reach for most that should be a button.