Rowlite

Rowlite is an open-source, lightweight CLI tool and MCP server that works with Markdown tables - create, read, append (update, delete coming soon!). Instead of writing SQL queries or ad-hoc scripts, developers and AI agents interact with tabular data using simple, declarative actions (list, append, update, delete, dedupe) directly over columns.

Why I created rowlite

One day, I opened a precious Markdown table that was being managed by one of my LLM agents, and was quite surprised. There should be ~300 entries, but there were around 20.

Because the agent was relying on fragile, ad-hoc scripts to update the file, there was difference in table column count between rows. Some rows had five columns, others had six, and the parsing/writing logic simply ate my data without warning.

I realized few things in that moment:

• Agents shouldn't write raw Markdown tables. Letting an AI manually format pipe-delimited tables (even with prepared scripts) will backfire sooner or later. They need a strict, safe and predictable API. Also, it is a waste of precious tokens.
• The storage format shouldn't change. I didn't want to migrate to SQLite or JSON and lose the beautiful, human-readable simplicity of a .md file.

I needed a tool that could guarantee the structural integrity of a standard Markdown table, but act like a database engine under the hood. It had to be simple, bulletproof, and bilingual—equally comfortable being queried by a human in a terminal or manipulated by an AI agent over an MCP connection.

And that is how rowlite was born.

PS: The table was not in a Git repository, but I was able to recover it in the end.

The rowlite Philosophy

• Schema Guardrails: No more uneven rows or missing cells. If a row doesn't match the table definition, rowlite corrects it or indicate error.
• 100% Standard Markdown: Your data remains completely open, human-readable, and perfectly rendered on GitHub or Obsidian.
• Double-Agent Design: Fast, native CLI commands for your terminal, and an out-of-the-box MCP server for your AI agents.

Features

• Zero-config by default: Works with standard markdown table, no configuration needed. If you need to simple CRUD, just use it.
• Frontmatter-customization: Advanced features can be triggered through frontmatter fields.
• In-place updates: Safely edits Markdown GFM tables without disturbing surrounding headings, notes, or descriptions in the document.
• Sorting and deduplication: Declare primary columns and sorting columns for simple constrints and ordering.
• Append: Simple operation to append new row at the end, ideal for logging tables, preventing find-and-replace issues and inefficiency AI agents tend to have.
• Auditing-info: Let insert/update timestamps on rowlite
• Model Context Protocol native: Fully compatible with the MCP specification for seamless integration with AI agent loops (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.).
• Journal log: Want to feel safe? Rowlite can write journal entries to additional file

Quickstart

1. Install Rowlite

Install rowlite globally via Go:

go install github.com/pipik-roman/rowlite/cmd/rowlite@latest

Ensure your Go bin directory (typically ~/go/bin or %USERPROFILE%\go\bin) is in your system's PATH.

2. Automatic MCP Setup

Rowlite includes an interactive setup driver that automatically configures host AI tools (Cursor, VS Code, Copilot CLI, Claude Desktop, Antigravity, Zed, Cline, Crush, etc.):

# Run the interactive setup wizard
rowlite mcp-setup

# Or target a specific client globally
rowlite mcp-setup --client cursor
rowlite mcp-setup --client copilot

[!TIP] Need manual JSON configurations or workspace-level setups? Check out the Complete MCP Configuration Guide for manual JSON config blocks and setup flags.

CLI Commands

• rowlite help - See CLI help for details
• rowlite init <file> - Create new markdown file with table or update current settings for existing file/table.
• rowlite structure <file> - Display column names, constraints, and audit log mappings.
• rowlite list <file> --where "<column> <op> <value>" - Query and filter rows.
• rowlite count <file> --where "<column> <op> <value>" - Count queried or filtered rows.
• rowlite append <file> --row '{"col1": "val1"}' - Append a row, applying validations. Use JSON or CSV.
• rowlite dedupe <file> --column <name> - Purge duplicate records in place.
• rowlite sort <file> --by "column:order,..." - Sort the table. Usefull for one-time sort or trigger the sorting from now-on.

Query Filtering (--where)

Both the list and count commands support filtering rows using the --where flag. Column names in --where clauses are resolved using a Case-Insensitive & Normalized Lookup (e.g. ITEM name, item_name or item-name match item name header automatically).

Supported Operators

• == : Exact match.
• != : Inequality match.
• like : Case-insensitive substring match.
• regex : Go regular expression match.

Examples

# Filter by exact priority
rowlite list tasks.md --where "Priority == High"

# Case-insensitive search in column (resolves tags column normalized and case-insensitively)
rowlite list tasks.md --where "tags like beach"

# Go regular expression matching
rowlite list tasks.md --where "Title regex ^[A-Z]"

Roadmap

Currently (2026-08-01) rowlite supports only bare minimum - append operation, simple query, count. Ideally markdown with table only.

Other features coming soon:

• releases
• delete row
• edit row/cell
• insert
• further improvements

Tech Stack

• Built in Go (for performance).
• CLI framework: Cobra
• Markdown GFM parsing: Goldmark
• Frontmatter parsing: frontmatter
• MCP communication: official Go SDK

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.