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Building SQLite with a small swarm

kiankyars.github.io

February 16, 2026

4 min read

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51/100

Summary

Claude, Codex, and Gemini built a SQLite-like engine in Rust, comprising approximately 19,000 lines of code. The implementation includes a parser, planner, volcano executor, pager, B-trees, write-ahead logging, recovery, joins, aggregates, indexing, transaction semantics, grouped aggregates, and statistics-aware planning, with 282 passing unit tests.

Key Takeaways

A SQLite-like engine was built in Rust with approximately 19,000 lines of code, implementing various components such as a parser, planner, and transaction semantics.
The project utilized six parallel agents (two each of Claude, Codex, and Gemini) to execute tasks, with 282 unit tests all passing.
Coordination challenges were significant, with 54.5% of commits related to lock management and stale-lock cleanup.
Effective parallelism requires strict task boundaries, shared state documentation, and a narrow interface for agents to enhance throughput.

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Community Sentiment

Negative

Positives

SQLite's extensive test coverage demonstrates a high standard of quality, which sets a benchmark for any new implementations attempting to replicate its functionality.

Concerns

The new codebase lacks the quality and performance of SQLite, with many basic elements missing or poorly implemented, raising concerns about its viability.
The approach of brute-forcing a version of SQLite through knowledge compression seems inefficient and unlikely to yield a functional product.
Prioritizing speed over correctness in parallel code execution could lead to significant errors, undermining the reliability of the database transactions.