sqlite-utils 4.0rc3
Simon Willison · Simon Willison · 2026-07-06
Simon Willison releases sqlite-utils 4.0rc3, delaying the stable release after AI-assisted triage expanded the changelog with compound foreign key support and SQLite-convention case-insensitive column name handling.
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Extraction
Topics: sqlitepython-librariesdatabase-toolingopen-source-releaseai-assisted-development
Claims
- sqlite-utils 4.0 stable was delayed because working through the backlog with Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.5 kept expanding the changelog beyond rc2.
- Version 4.0rc3 adds support for introspecting and creating compound foreign keys.
- The compound foreign key feature introduces a breaking change to the table.foreign_keys API, requiring it to land in the major 4.0 release.
- sqlite-utils now follows SQLite's convention for case-insensitive column names, a change that touched many parts of the codebase.
Key quotes
I hoped to release sqlite-utils 4.0 stable this weekend, but as I worked through the backlog of issues and PRs with a combination of Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.5 the changelog since rc2 kept getting bigger.
The biggest new feature is support for introspecting and creating compound foreign keys - a feature that involves a subtle breaking change to table.foreign_keys and hence needed to land for the 4.0 stable release.