A free, open-source desktop dev desk — SQL client, HTTP request client, and a shared JSON inspector, in one app, with an AI/MCP hook built in from the ground up. Think Postico + Postman + a JSON viewer, unified.
Built with Tauri (Rust core + native webview) and Svelte. Color-coded navigation — SQL blue, Requests green, Inspector violet — so it's always obvious which tool, connection, and tab you're looking at.
Most people juggle a SQL client, an HTTP client, and a JSON viewer as three separate paid tools that don't talk to each other. OG TestDesk is all three in one place, genuinely free (Apache 2.0, no paywall, no seat licenses), and — its actual headline feature — a local MCP server so an AI assistant can open tabs, run queries, send requests, and watch its own results land live in the UI, correcting course as it goes, instead of you copy-pasting between a terminal and a browser.
Point any MCP-capable AI client at the app's local server and it can, within limits you control per-connection and server-wide:
- List schemas/columns, run queries, browse foreign keys
- Send HTTP requests, run saved requests
- Open a SQL or request tab, save a query/request/connection — so you see exactly what it did, live, in the app itself
- Read the app's own debug state and error log to help diagnose issues
Every capability is behind an explicit flag (allow_write,
allow_http, allow_populate, allow_manage_connections) and a
per-connection "exposed" toggle — nothing is reachable by default.
Supports both a static bearer token (for local CLI config) and a full
OAuth 2.0 layer (discovery, dynamic client registration, PKCE) for
clients whose connector framework requires it.
- Connection manager: Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, with per-connection
accent colors, a read-only switch (blocks every write at the
driver level, everywhere — the editor, MCP, the scheduler), an
optional SSH tunnel (shells out to the system
ssh), and a pre-connect shell command for IAM-style short-lived credentials (aws rds generate-db-auth-token, etc.) - Paste a
postgres:///mysql:///sqlite://connection URL to fill the form instead of typing each field - Lazy schema/column tree, foreign-key browser, functions/procedures tab
- CodeMirror editor: run / run-selection, save, schema-aware
autocomplete, a formatter (per-dialect), history cycling
(Alt+↑/↓, like a shell), and Run All — splits a script on
;(respecting strings/comments) and runs each statement in sequence with its own result tab - Sortable, filterable, virtualized-scroll result grid; CSV/TSV/JSON export
- Real row editing — edit cells on a plain
SELECT * FROM table(any table with a primary key) and save as actual UPDATE/INSERT/ DELETE statements, with a confirmation preview before anything runs - Graphical table structure editor (add/rename/drop columns, change type/nullable/default) and a DDL view, both dialect-aware
- CSV import wizard — new table (with inferred column types) or an existing one
- Foreign-key picker — jump straight to a referenced row
- Query history and scheduled queries (run on an interval, unattended)
- Collections, saved requests,
{{variable}}environments with an active-env switcher, Postman collection import/export - Body types: raw (JSON/text/XML), x-www-form-urlencoded, multipart form-data (including file uploads), binary, GraphQL (query + variables)
- Auth: Bearer, Basic, API key, OAuth 2.0 (Client Credentials and Authorization Code + PKCE, opens your system browser and catches the redirect locally), Digest (RFC 2617), AWS Signature v4
- Pre-request & test scripts — a
pm.*sandbox (environment/global variables, a mutable request object,pm.test(...)assertions against the response) running in a script-sandboxed iframe, not the main app - Cookie manager — a real jar, collected from responses and replayed automatically, viewable/editable
- Response viewer with a visualizer tab for HTML/image/PDF responses, not just raw text
- Code snippet generation — cURL, Python, JavaScript, Node.js
- Proxy / custom CA / per-host client certificates (mTLS)
- A local mock server — canned status/headers/body per route, start/stop on demand
- WebSocket connection tester — connect, send, watch a live message log
- gRPC — server-reflection-based service/method discovery and
unary calls, no
.protofile needed if the server supports reflection
Tree / Table / Summary views over any JSON — fed automatically from SQL results and HTTP responses, or paste your own. Search with match count and auto-expand, a detail panel (path / type / size / pretty + copy), and per-node editing.
core/ og_testdesk_core — persistence (SQLite via sqlx), DB driver
abstraction (Postgres/MySQL/SQLite), HTTP request runner,
gRPC reflection client, cookie jar, OS keychain secrets.
No UI code.
src-tauri/ Tauri backend — command layer wrapping core/, the MCP
server, the local mock server, window config, packaging.
frontend/ SvelteKit UI — SQL / Requests / Inspector modules, the
color-coded top nav, shared JSON tree viewer.
Requires Rust, Node 20+, and pnpm.
cd frontend && pnpm install && cd ..
cargo tauri dev
(cargo tauri requires cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2" once.)
The app stores its local metadata SQLite DB in the OS app-data
directory (OGTestDesk/og_testdesk.db); override with
OGTESTDESK_DB_PATH. Connection passwords are never written to that
file — they live in the OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Windows
Credential Manager / Linux Secret Service), keyed by connection id.
cd frontend && pnpm build && cd ..
cargo tauri build
One version, in one place: the workspace Cargo.toml's
[workspace.package] version — src-tauri/core inherit it via
version.workspace = true, and tauri.conf.json has no version of
its own, so Tauri reads it from src-tauri's Cargo.toml too.
scripts/bump-version.sh 0.2.0 # updates Cargo.toml + frontend/package.json
git add -A && git commit -m "Bump version to 0.2.0"
git tag v0.2.0 && git push origin main v0.2.0
Pushing a v* tag triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which
builds and packages the app for macOS, Windows, and Linux and attaches
the installers to a (draft) GitHub Release. See CHANGELOG.md.
Post-MVP polish and known gaps are tracked in docs/next-steps.md.
Apache License 2.0 — genuinely open source, free for anyone, personal or commercial, no strings attached.
If OG TestDesk has replaced Postman, Postico, pgAdmin, or a handful of troubleshooting tools in your day-to-day — especially if that's at a company where this now sits in the toolchain — consider sponsoring its development. Nothing is gated behind it; it's just the most direct way to help keep this maintained and moving.