Local Development

Developers can build locally with Turso using either of the following methods:

Local Turso database — local database file, no server needed (recommended)
Turso CLI — managed libSQL server

Using a dump locally

You can always dump your production database and use it locally for development:

Create a dump using the Turso CLI

turso db shell your-database .dump > dump.sql

Create SQLite file from dump

cat dump.sql | sqlite3 local.db

Connect to the file

You can use either of the methods below with the local.db file, or you can use a new file name if you prefer to create a database from scratch.

Local Turso database

Whenever your application runs against a local database, we recommend the Turso packages. They are fully SQLite-compatible — they open existing SQLite files — and run entirely in your process, no server needed:

import { connect } from "@tursodatabase/database";

const db = await connect("local.db");

use turso::Builder;

let db = Builder::new_local("local.db").build().await?;
let conn = db.connect()?;

package main

import (
  "database/sql"

  _ "turso.tech/database/tursogo"
)

func main() {
  db, _ := sql.Open("turso", "local.db")
  defer db.Close()
}

import turso

db = turso.connect("local.db")

You don’t need to provide an authToken in development.

It’s recommended to use environment variables for both url and authToken for a seamless developer experience.

Turso CLI

If you’re developing against a libSQL database and use libSQL-specific features like extensions, you should use the Turso CLI:

turso dev

This will start a local libSQL server and create a database for you. You can then connect to it with your libSQL client using the url option:

JavaScript

import { createClient } from "@libsql/client";

const client = createClient({
  url: "http://127.0.0.1:8080",
});

The same URL works with the libSQL clients for other languages.

Changes will be lost when you stop the server.

If you want to persist changes, or use a production dump, you can pass the --db-file flag with the name of the SQLite file:

turso dev --db-file local.db

Turso Cloud database

If you already have a database created on Turso Cloud, you can use that same one in development by passing the url option to your SDK.

Keep in mind that using the Turso Cloud hosted database will incur platform costs and count towards your quota. Consider one of the local methods above to avoid platform costs.

Connecting a GUI

During development you can easily connect to a SQLite, libSQL, or Turso database using one of the tools below:

Beekeeper Studio — macOS, Linux, and Windows
Outerbase — Runs in the browser
TablePlus — macOS, Windows, and Linux
Dataflare — Paid (with limited free version) macOS, Windows, and Linux
Outerbase Studio - Runs in the browser
DBeaver - macOS, Windows, and Linux

Turso Cloud

SDKs

CLI

API Reference

Integrations

Local Development

Using a dump locally

Local Turso database

Turso CLI

Turso Cloud database

Connecting a GUI

​Using a dump locally

​Local Turso database

​Turso CLI

​Turso Cloud database

​Connecting a GUI

Using a dump locally

Local Turso database

Turso CLI

Turso Cloud database

Connecting a GUI