Blog

Following the launch of Forward, Playgrounds was developed to address the need for a flexible SQL query environment, offering a multi-node model that enables investigation, prototyping, and validation of data assumptions without building full data products. Unlike the previous Classic interface, Playgrounds incorporates a different architecture, featuring a React frontend with a split-screen panel system and a Python backend, which allows users to easily explore data schemas while writing SQL queries. The system is designed to be ephemeral, using Redis for fast reads and writes, as it does not require the transactional guarantees of a database like PostgreSQL. It supports two types of playgrounds, one for SQL exploration and another for AI-driven chat sessions, with a simple sharing model allowing either private or workspace-wide access. The editor also supports Tinybird's specific SQL dialect with custom CodeMirror language extensions for syntax highlighting, and includes AI-assisted SQL generation with a diff preview feature for safe code review. The focus on simplicity and scalability extends to its RESTful API, which handles access control and workspace membership, and the UI, which employs accessible roles for testing and automatically prevents non-owners from modifying sharing permissions. Playgrounds is available for immediate use within Forward, providing a user-friendly environment for writing and testing SQL queries directly in the workspace.