Postgres AIops

Postgres AIops

Disclaimer: Community-maintained open-source project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the PostgreSQL Global Development Group or any vendor. "PostgreSQL" and the elephant logo are trademarks of the PostgreSQL Community Association; all product/trademark names belong to their respective owners. MIT licensed.

Governed AI-ops for PostgreSQL DBA operations — connecting to a server with psycopg 3 and reading the system catalogs and pg_stat_* views — with a built-in governance harness: unified audit log, token/runaway budget guard, undo-token recording, and descriptive risk-tier labels. Beyond the mock test suite, the reads, a governed write, and its undo have been exercised against a live PostgreSQL 16.14 instance — see docs/VERIFICATION.md.

What it does

Three flagship signature analyses, plus the guarded reads and writes around them:

• Slow-query RCA — take the worst pg_stat_statements entry (plus an optional EXPLAIN plan) and map its numbers — mean time, cache-hit ratio, temp spill, call count, plan node types — to a cited cause and a concrete action. Every finding carries its measured number, not a black-box verdict.
• Bloat & vacuum analysis — combine per-table dead-tuple ratio and autovacuum recency into a ranked, cited recommendation (VACUUM / tune autovacuum).
• Blocking lock-chain RCA — build the wait-for tree from pg_blocking_pids, name the root blocker (blocks others, waits on none), and give the action; a cycle is flagged as a likely deadlock.

What works

• CLI (postgres-aiops ...): init, overview, server, activity, query, index, table, repl, analyze, remediate, secret, doctor, mcp.
• MCP server (postgres-aiops mcp or postgres-aiops-mcp): 35 tools (25 read, 10 write), every one wrapped with the bundled @governed_tool harness.
• Encrypted credentials: the role password lives in an encrypted store ~/.postgres-aiops/secrets.enc (Fernet + scrypt) — never plaintext on disk. Unlock with a master password from POSTGRES_AIOPS_MASTER_PASSWORD (MCP/CI) or an interactive prompt (CLI).
• Reversibility: mutating writes fetch the real before-state first and record a faithful inverse — create_index↔drop_index; drop_index captures pg_get_indexdef so undo recreates it exactly; update_setting captures the prior value so undo sets it back. Irreversible ops (terminate_backend, cancel_query, run_vacuum, run_analyze, reindex, reset_query_stats) record prior stats for audit but declare no undo.
• Safety: every state-changing CLI op supports --dry-run and requires double confirmation; every write MCP tool takes a dry_run preview. All identifiers that cannot be parameterised (table/index/GUC names) are validated and quoted; all values are bound query parameters.

Capability matrix (35 MCP tools)

Domain	Tools	Count	R/W
Overview	overview	1	read
Server	server_version, show_settings, list_extensions, list_databases, list_roles	5	read
Activity	list_activity, long_running_queries, list_locks	3	read
Queries	top_queries, explain_query	2	read
Indexes	unused_indexes, missing_index_hints, index_bloat, invalid_indexes	4	read
Tables	table_sizes, table_bloat, autovacuum_status	3	read
Replication	replication_status, replication_slots, wal_status	3	read
Analysis (flagship)	slow_query_rca, bloat_and_vacuum_analysis, blocking_lock_chain_rca	3	read
Writes	terminate_backend, cancel_query, drop_index	3	write (high)
	run_vacuum, run_analyze, create_index, reindex, update_setting, reset_query_stats	6	write (medium)
Undo	undo_list	1	read
	undo_apply	1	write (medium)

The flagship analyses accept injected records for pure/offline analysis, or pull live from a configured target. top_queries/slow_query_rca require the pg_stat_statements extension; the read role should have pg_monitor.

What this tool does, and does not, decide

It delivers PostgreSQL DBA operations — reads and writes — accurately and efficiently, and records every one of them. It does not decide whether a write is allowed to happen. That is the agent's judgement, or the permission of the account you connect it with: connect with a PostgreSQL role that has no write privileges (a read-only role, or one without INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE/DDL), and the writes fail at the server — the place that actually owns the permission.

So there is no read-only switch, no policy file, no approval gate to configure. The one thing the tool guarantees is that nothing is silent: every call, over MCP and over the CLI alike, lands an audit row in ~/.postgres-aiops/audit.db, and destructive writes still capture their before-state and record an inverse where one exists.

Each tool declares a risk_level, carried into the audit row as a descriptive tier (none/confirm/review) — so a reviewer can see at a glance that a row was a high-risk delete. It is a label, not a gate.

Running a smaller / local model? See agent-guardrails.md — it lists the guardrails this tool now enforces for you (so you don't spend prompt budget restating them) and gives a ready-made system prompt for what's left.

Quick start

As a Claude Code plugin

One install gives an agent both the skill and the MCP server:

/plugin marketplace add AIops-tools/marketplace
/plugin install postgres-aiops@aiops-tools

The MCP server is fetched with uv and pinned to the package version this plugin declares, so an audit row can be traced back to the code that wrote it. Credentials are still configured with postgres-aiops init — see below.

As an OpenClaw plugin

The same bundle is published on ClawHub, where one install delivers the skill and its MCP server together:

openclaw plugins install clawhub:@zw008/postgres-aiops
openclaw skills info postgres-aiops          # expect: Visible to model: yes

Restart the OpenClaw gateway afterwards so it loads the plugin. The MCP server is fetched with uv, pinned to this exact release, so uvx has to be on PATH — without it the skill still installs but reports Visible to model: no. Credentials are configured exactly as below.

As a CLI or standalone MCP server

uv tool install postgres-aiops             # or: pipx install postgres-aiops
postgres-aiops init                        # wizard: add a target + store the password (encrypted)
postgres-aiops doctor                      # verify config, secrets, connectivity
postgres-aiops overview                    # one-shot cluster health snapshot
postgres-aiops analyze slow-query          # RCA the worst pg_stat_statements entry
postgres-aiops table bloat                 # dead-tuple bloat proxy per table

Run as an MCP server (stdio):

export POSTGRES_AIOPS_MASTER_PASSWORD=...  # unlock secrets non-interactively
postgres-aiops-mcp

Where that password then lives: an exported variable is readable by every process this shell starts and is recorded by shell history. On a shared or long-lived host, prefer the interactive prompt, or inject it from a secret manager for the life of the one command that needs it.

Governance

Every MCP tool passes through the bundled @governed_tool harness:

• Audit — every call (params, result, status, duration, risk tier, and any operator-supplied approver/rationale) is logged to ~/.postgres-aiops/audit.db (relocatable via POSTGRES_AIOPS_HOME). The CLI writes the same row the MCP path does — there is no unaudited entry point.
• Runaway guard — a safety backstop, not an authorization gate: the same call hammered in a tight loop trips a circuit breaker. Disable with POSTGRES_RUNAWAY_MAX=0; optional hard ceilings via POSTGRES_MAX_TOOL_CALLS / POSTGRES_MAX_TOOL_SECONDS.
• Undo recording — reversible writes record an inverse descriptor built from the fetched before-state.
• Risk tier — a descriptive label on the audit row derived from risk_level; it gates nothing.

Scope

This is the PostgreSQL DBA-ops member of the AIops-tools family (governed AI-ops with audit + budget + undo + risk tiers). Do NOT use it for OT / industrial edge (Modbus, OPC-UA, PROFINET) — see the separate industrial-aiops line — nor for application-schema migrations or ORM management.

Missing a capability?

Coverage is intentionally a curated subset of PostgreSQL's catalogs and maintenance surface. Missing a view, a metric, or a maintenance command? Open an issue or PR — contributions welcome.

Status

The mock test suite is complemented by a live run: the catalog / pg_stat_* reads, the bloat_and_vacuum_analysis RCA, and the create_index / drop_index governed write path (audit + undo, with drop_index capturing pg_get_indexdef first) were exercised against a live PostgreSQL 16.14 instance running in Docker. docs/VERIFICATION.md records exactly what was and was not covered. postgres-aiops doctor is the fastest live check.