pgcentralfoundation/pgrx

pgrx is a framework for writing PostgreSQL database extensions using the Rust programming language. PostgreSQL can be extended with custom functions, data types, and behaviors, but doing so traditionally requires writing C code. pgrx lets you build those extensions in Rust instead, while the framework handles the translation between Rust and Postgres internals. The project ships a command-line tool called cargo-pgrx that manages the full development workflow. You use it to create a new extension project, spin up a local Postgres instance to test against, run unit tests across multiple Postgres versions, and package the extension for installation. On first run, it downloads and compiles supported Postgres versions automatically so you do not need a separately installed database server. A major part of what pgrx does is type mapping. It automatically converts between Rust's native types and the corresponding Postgres types. For example, a Rust i32 maps to a Postgres integer, a String maps to text, and so on. It also generates the SQL schema definitions that Postgres needs to know about your extension's functions and types, so you do not have to write those by hand. Safety is a stated design goal. When Rust code panics, pgrx catches that and turns it into a Postgres error that aborts the current transaction cleanly rather than crashing the database process. Memory management follows Rust's standard ownership rules even in error scenarios. The framework supports user-defined functions, custom data types via derive macros, trigger functions, and access to Postgres internals through a lower-level unsafe interface for advanced use cases. It supports Postgres versions 11 through 15 from the same codebase.