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Version: v1.0.0

Shed Overview

Welcome to the documentation for Shed — an intuitive database designer tool built for modern engineering teams.

:::tip Official Web App You can start designing schemas and converting queries directly in your browser at shedb.online. :::

What is Shed?​

Shed is a visual database designer tool that pairs a modern UI canvas with powerful automated developer tooling. It bridges visual architecture, database migrations, and AI developer workflows into a unified platform.

Whether you are designing schemas from scratch, converting queries across different SQL engines, synchronizing repository migrations, or connecting AI agents via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Shed streamlines your database development cycle.

Key Features​

🎨 Visual UI Designer​

Design, visualize, and structure relational schemas directly on an interactive UI canvas:

  • Define tables, primary keys, indexes, and column data types with ease.
  • Model entity relationships (foreign keys, one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many) with visual connections.
  • Keep documentation, schema definitions, and team architecture models in lockstep.

🔄 Multi-Dialect Query Converter​

Translate SQL syntax effortlessly between major relational database engines. Shed's built-in query converter understands dialect-specific nuances across:

  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server)
  • SQLite

Easily port queries, convert data types, and rewrite schema DDL when migrating or supporting multiple backend databases.

⚡ Programmatic Repository API​

Automate database synchronization directly in your CI/CD pipelines and backend services:

  • Retrieve compiled schemas and verified SHA-256 integrity checksums.
  • Inspect chronological forward (sqlUp) and rollback (sqlDown) migration scripts.
  • Manage and fetch seed datasets for reproducible local and staging environments.
  • Read more in the Repository API Reference.

🤖 Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server​

Shed natively runs an HTTP-based MCP server (https://mcp.shedb.online/mcp), enabling AI agents like VS Code (Cline / Roo Code), Cursor, Claude Desktop, Zed, and Windsurf to:

  • Directly query your database schemas, tables, and foreign keys.
  • Read historical migrations and forward/rollback SQL statements.
  • Retrieve sample seeds and repository changelog states without context-switching.
  • Read more in the MCP Documentation.

Core Documentation Topics​

Get started exploring Shed documentation:

  • 🚀 How to Use Shed: Step-by-step guide to installing the CLI, starting the daemon, and setting up your workspace.
  • ⚡ Repository API: REST endpoints, X-API-Key authentication, and JSON response models for schemas, migrations, and seeds.
  • 🤖 MCP Documentation: Connecting your IDE and AI assistants to https://mcp.shedb.online/mcp using X-Session-Id, session-id, or the sessionId query parameter.