Rowlite

Rowlite is an open-source, lightweight CLI tool and MCP server that works with Markdown tables - create, read, append (update, delete coming soon!). Instead of writing SQL queries or ad-hoc scripts, developers and AI agents interact with tabular data using simple, declarative actions (list, append, update, delete, dedupe) directly over columns.

Why I created rowlite

One day, I opened a precious Markdown table that was being managed by one of my LLM agents, and was quite surprised. There should be ~300 entries, but there were around 20.

Because the agent was relying on fragile, ad-hoc scripts to update the file, there was difference in table column count between rows. Some rows had five columns, others had six, and the parsing/writing logic simply ate my data without warning.

I realized few things in that moment:

• Agents shouldn't write raw Markdown tables. Letting an AI manually format pipe-delimited tables (even with prepared scripts) will backfire sooner or later. They need a strict, safe and predictable API. Also, it is a waste of precious tokens.
• The storage format shouldn't change. I didn't want to migrate to SQLite or JSON and lose the beautiful, human-readable simplicity of a .md file.

I needed a tool that could guarantee the structural integrity of a standard Markdown table, but act like a database engine under the hood. It had to be simple, bulletproof, and bilingual—equally comfortable being queried by a human in a terminal or manipulated by an AI agent over an MCP connection.

And that is how rowlite was born.

PS: The table was not in a Git repository, but I was able to recover it in the end.

The rowlite Philosophy

• Schema Guardrails: No more uneven rows or missing cells. If a row doesn't match the table definition, rowlite corrects it or indicate error.
• 100% Standard Markdown: Your data remains completely open, human-readable, and perfectly rendered on GitHub or Obsidian.
• Double-Agent Design: Fast, native CLI commands for your terminal, and an out-of-the-box MCP server for your AI agents.

Features

• Zero-config by default: Works with standard markdown table, no configuration needed. If you need simple CRUD, just use it.
• Frontmatter-customization: Advanced features can be triggered through frontmatter fields (unique, sort, audit, journal_log, autoincrement).
• Auto-increment columns: Automatically generate sequential integer IDs (e.g. id:10 or id:1) for omitted cells on append.
• In-place updates: Safely edits Markdown GFM tables without disturbing surrounding headings, notes, or descriptions in the document.
• Sorting and deduplication: Declare primary columns and sorting columns for simple constraints and ordering.
• Append: Simple operation to append new row at the end, ideal for logging tables, preventing find-and-replace issues and inefficiency AI agents tend to have.
• Auditing-info: Automatic created_at / updated_at timestamps on rowlite operations.
• Model Context Protocol native: Fully compatible with the MCP specification for seamless integration with AI agent loops (Cursor, Claude Code, Antigravity, etc.) with thread-safe TableConfig caching.
• 4-Column Journal log: Audit table change events to append-only .log files (| timestamp | operation | row_key | details |).

Quickstart

1. Installation

Choose the installation method best suited for your environment:

Method 1: Package Managers (Recommended)

macOS & Linux (Homebrew)

brew tap pipik-roman/tap
brew install rowlite

Windows (Scoop)

scoop bucket add rowlite https://github.com/pipik-roman/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install rowlite

Method 2: One-Line Install Scripts

Linux & macOS (POSIX Shell)

Quickly install the latest binary directly to /usr/local/bin:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pipik-roman/rowlite/main/install.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell)

Installs automatically to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\rowlite and configures your User PATH:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pipik-roman/rowlite/main/install.ps1 | iex

Method 3: Pre-compiled Binaries

1. Go to the Releases Page.
2. Download the appropriate archive for your operating system and CPU architecture:
   • Windows: rowlite_<version>_windows_amd64.zip (or arm64)
   • macOS: rowlite_<version>_darwin_arm64.tar.gz (Apple Silicon) or darwin_amd64.tar.gz (Intel)
   • Linux: rowlite_<version>_linux_amd64.tar.gz (or arm64)
3. Extract the archive and move the rowlite executable into a folder included in your system's PATH.

Method 4: From Source (For Go Developers)

If you have Go installed on your machine (1.23+):

go install github.com/pipik-roman/rowlite/cmd/rowlite@latest

Ensure your Go bin directory (typically ~/go/bin on Unix or %USERPROFILE%\go\bin on Windows) is in your system PATH.

2. Automatic MCP Setup

Rowlite includes an interactive setup driver that automatically configures host AI tools (Cursor, VS Code, Copilot CLI, Claude Desktop, Antigravity, Zed, Cline, Crush, etc.):

# Run the interactive setup wizard
rowlite mcp-setup

# Or target a specific client globally
rowlite mcp-setup --client cursor
rowlite mcp-setup --client copilot

[!TIP] Need manual JSON configurations or workspace-level setups? Check out the Complete MCP Configuration Guide for manual JSON config blocks and setup flags.

CLI Commands

• rowlite help - See CLI help for details
• rowlite init <file> [--columns "id,name"] [--unique "id"] [--sort "id:asc"] [--autoincrement "id:10"] [--journal-log "journal.log"] - Create new markdown table file or update frontmatter constraints in-place.
• rowlite structure <file> - Display column names, constraints, and audit log mappings.
• rowlite list <file> --where "<column> <op> <value>" - Query and filter rows.
• rowlite count <file> --where "<column> <op> <value>" - Count queried or filtered rows.
• rowlite append <file> --row '{"col1": "val1"}' - Append a row, applying validations. Use JSON or CSV.
• rowlite dedupe <file> --column <name> - Purge duplicate records in place.
• rowlite sort <file> --by "column:order,..." - Sort the table. Usefull for one-time sort or trigger the sorting from now-on.

Query Filtering (--where)

Both the list and count commands support filtering rows using the --where flag. Column names in --where clauses are resolved using a Case-Insensitive & Normalized Lookup (e.g. ITEM name, item_name or item-name match item name header automatically).

Supported Operators

• == : Exact match.
• != : Inequality match.
• like : Case-insensitive substring match.
• regex : Go regular expression match.

Examples

# Filter by exact priority
rowlite list tasks.md --where "Priority == High"

# Case-insensitive search in column (resolves tags column normalized and case-insensitively)
rowlite list tasks.md --where "tags like beach"

# Go regular expression matching
rowlite list tasks.md --where "Title regex ^[A-Z]"

Roadmap

Currently (2026-08-01) rowlite supports only bare minimum - append operation, simple query, count. Ideally markdown with table only.

Other features/improvements coming soon:

• auto increment column (next release)
• update row/cell (next release)
• journalling changes (next release)
• MCP table metadata caching (next release)
• delete row (future release)
• releases to MCP directories (future release)
• insert (future release)
• views (auto-updated filtered copy of original table) (future release)

Other planned improvements:

Tech Stack

• Built in Go (for performance).
• CLI framework: Cobra
• Markdown GFM parsing: Goldmark
• Frontmatter parsing: frontmatter
• MCP communication: official Go SDK

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.