madolt

A magit-like Emacs interface for the Dolt version-controlled database.

Madolt provides a section-based, keyboard-driven UI for Dolt's Git-like version control operations on SQL databases. The core workflow is: view status -> stage tables -> commit -> view history.

Overview & diffs

Stage, commit, log, refs & branch

Stash & interactive rebase

Merge, conflicts, blame, SQL & server

Features

Core workflow

• Status buffer -- current branch, upstream, merge conflicts, staged/unstaged/untracked tables, stashes, unpushed/unpulled commits, and recent commits (like magit-status); section visibility preserved across refreshes
• Stage/unstage/discard/clean -- operate on tables at point or stage/unstage all at once (Dolt stages whole tables, not hunks)
• Commit with transient arguments (--all, --ALL, --amend, --allow-empty, --force, --date, --author); commit message via minibuffer with history (M-p/M-n)

Viewing changes

• Tabular diff viewer -- Dolt diffs are row-level and cell-level, not line-based text; madolt renders them in structured mode (collapsible row sections with cell-level highlighting) or raw tabular mode
• Log viewer -- navigable commit history with collapsible sections; TAB shows stat output inline, RET shows the full revision with diff
• Reflog -- view and navigate the reference log
• Blame -- per-table blame showing commit attribution per row

Branching and history

• Branch management -- checkout, create, delete, rename
• Merge with arguments (--no-ff, --ff-only, --squash, --no-commit) and abort
• Rebase with interactive and empty-commit flags, continue/abort
• Cherry-pick and revert commits
• Reset -- soft (move HEAD), hard (reset everything), mixed (unstage all)
• Tag -- create, delete, and list tags
• Stash -- create, pop, drop, and clear stashes

Remote operations

• Fetch from origin or other remotes (with prune)
• Pull with --ff-only, --no-ff, --squash
• Push with --force, --set-upstream
• Remote management -- add/remove remotes

Inspecting and utilities

• SQL query interface -- run arbitrary SQL queries from Emacs
• Conflict resolution -- view conflict details (base/ours/theirs) and resolve by taking ours or theirs
• Process buffer -- view all Dolt CLI invocations and their output (like magit's $ buffer)
• Copy section value -- w copies table name or commit hash to kill ring
• Dispatch menu -- transient-based top-level menu for all commands

Requirements

• Emacs >= 29.1
• Dolt >= 1.0
• Emacs packages:
  • magit-section >= 4.0
  • transient >= 0.7
  • with-editor >= 3.0
  • compat >= 30.1

Installation

straight.el

(straight-use-package
 '(madolt :type git :host github :repo "aspiers/madolt"))

use-package + straight.el

(use-package madolt
  :straight (:host github :repo "aspiers/madolt")
  :commands (madolt-status madolt-dispatch))

Manual

Clone the repository and add it to your load-path:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/madolt")
(require 'madolt)

Suggested keybinding

(keymap-global-set "C-x D" #'madolt-status)

Usage

Open a Dolt database directory and run:

M-x madolt-status

This opens the status buffer showing the current branch, staged changes, unstaged changes, untracked tables, and recent commits.

From any madolt buffer, press ? or h to open the dispatch menu.

Keybindings

Status buffer

Key	Command	Description
g	refresh	Refresh the current buffer
q	quit-window	Close the buffer
?/h	madolt-dispatch	Show dispatch menu
s	madolt-stage	Stage the table at point
S	madolt-stage-all	Stage all tables
u	madolt-unstage	Unstage the table at point
U	madolt-unstage-all	Unstage all tables
k	madolt-discard	Discard changes to table at point
x	madolt-clean	Remove untracked table at point
b	madolt-branch	Branch transient menu
c	madolt-commit	Commit transient menu
d	madolt-diff	Diff transient menu
l	madolt-log	Log transient menu
m	madolt-merge	Merge transient menu
r	madolt-rebase	Rebase transient menu
t	madolt-tag	Tag transient menu
z	madolt-stash	Stash transient menu
A	madolt-cherry-pick	Cherry-pick transient menu
V	madolt-revert	Revert transient menu
X	madolt-reset	Reset transient menu
B	madolt-blame	Blame a table
C	madolt-conflicts	Conflict resolution menu
e	madolt-sql-query	Run a SQL query
f	madolt-fetch	Fetch transient menu
F	madolt-pull	Pull transient menu
P	madolt-push	Push transient menu
M	madolt-remote-manage	Remote management menu
w	madolt-copy-section-value	Copy section value to kill ring
$	madolt-process-buffer	Show the process log buffer
RET	madolt-visit-thing	Visit the thing at point
TAB	toggle section	Expand/collapse the current section

Branch transient (b)

Key	Command
b	Checkout branch
c	Create & checkout new branch
n	Create branch (no checkout)
k	Delete branch
m	Rename branch

Commit transient (c)

Key	Command / Argument
c	Create commit
a	Amend last commit
m	Edit commit message only
-a	Stage all modified/deleted tables
-A	Stage all tables (including new)
-e	Allow empty commit
-f	Force (ignore constraint warnings)
=d	Override date
=A	Override author

Diff transient (d)

Key	Command / Argument
d	Working tree diff
s	Staged diff
c	Diff between two commits
t	Single table diff
r	Raw tabular mode
-s	Statistics only
-S	Summary only
-w	Where clause filter
-k	Skinny columns

Log transient (l)

Key	Command / Argument
l	Current branch log
o	Other branch log
h	HEAD log
O	Current branch reflog
p	Other ref reflog
-n	Limit count
-s	Show stat
-m	Merges only
-g	Graph

Merge transient (m)

Key	Command / Argument
m	Merge
a	Abort merge
-n	No fast-forward
-f	Fast-forward only
-s	Squash
-c	No commit

Rebase transient (r)

Key	Command / Argument
r	Rebase onto
c	Continue
a	Abort
-i	Interactive
-e	Empty commits: keep

Reset transient (X)

Key	Command
s	Soft reset
h	Hard reset
m	Mixed (unstage all)

Cherry-pick transient (A)

Key	Command / Argument
A	Cherry-pick
a	Abort
-e	Allow empty

Tag transient (t)

Key	Command / Argument
t	Create tag
k	Delete tag
l	List tags
-m	Message

Stash transient (z)

Key	Command / Argument
z	Stash
p	Pop
k	Drop
x	Clear all
-u	Include untracked
-a	All (including ignored)

Fetch (f) / Pull (F) / Push (P)

Key	Fetch	Pull	Push
p	Fetch from origin	Pull from origin	Push to origin
e	Fetch elsewhere	Pull elsewhere	Push elsewhere

Remote management (M)

Key	Command
a	Add remote
k	Remove remote

Conflict resolution (C)

Key	Command
c	Show conflicts
o	Resolve ours
t	Resolve theirs

Section navigation (inherited from magit-section)

Key	Command
TAB	Toggle current section
n	Next section
p	Previous section
M-n	Next sibling section
M-p	Previous sibling section
^	Parent section

Architecture

Madolt is organized as 21 source files (~4,450 LOC) with 21 test files (~6,030 LOC):

File	Purpose	LOC
madolt.el	Entry point, defgroup, dispatch transient	136
madolt-dolt.el	CLI wrapper: parsing Dolt output	492
madolt-process.el	Process execution and logging	157
madolt-mode.el	Major mode, buffer lifecycle, refresh	285
madolt-status.el	Status buffer with section inserters	369
madolt-apply.el	Stage/unstage/discard/clean operations	186
madolt-commit.el	Commit transient and minibuffer commit	181
madolt-diff.el	Tabular diff viewer (structured + raw)	686
madolt-log.el	Commit log viewer and revision buffer	482
madolt-branch.el	Branch management transient	115
madolt-merge.el	Merge transient	88
madolt-rebase.el	Rebase transient	91
madolt-reset.el	Reset transient (soft/hard/mixed)	101
madolt-cherry-pick.el	Cherry-pick and revert transients	97
madolt-remote.el	Fetch/pull/push/remote management	201
madolt-stash.el	Stash transient	110
madolt-tag.el	Tag transient	98
madolt-blame.el	Per-table blame mode	130
madolt-conflicts.el	Conflict resolution UI	187
madolt-reflog.el	Reference log viewer	134
madolt-sql.el	SQL query interface	121

Acknowledgements

Madolt could not possibly have been made without the incredible creation which is Magit. Not only does it emulate Magit's superb UI design as much as possible, but also depends on a lot of its code and associated dependencies such as transient.

So immeasurable thanks go to its creators, and in particular Jonas Bernoulli who has been a tireless maintainer of the highest quality for many years. Please do consider supporting his work!

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for build instructions, running tests, and known limitations.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE for the full text.