Simon Willison has launched datasette-apps, a new Datasette plugin that embeds sandboxed HTML+JavaScript applications directly inside a Datasette instance, giving each app live read-only SQL access to the underlying SQLite data. Apps run inside tightly restricted iframes using a combination of the sandbox attribute and injected Content Security Policy headers, preventing untrusted code from accessing cookies, localStorage, or external hosts. The concept originated from Willison's effort to replicate a Claude Artifacts-style experience inside Datasette Agent, before being promoted to a standalone top-level plugin.
Datasette 1.0a34 ships native CRUD operations in the browser interface, letting users insert, edit, and delete rows directly from table and row pages. The feature was prompted by Datasette Agent, which recently gained SQL write support, creating an awkward asymmetry where the AI chat interface could modify data but the standard UI could not. The release moves Datasette meaningfully closer to a lightweight data-management tool rather than a read-only data publishing layer.
Version 0.3a0 of datasette-agent introduces `execute_write_sql`, a new tool that translates natural language into write SQL statements and prompts the user to confirm before execution. The `datasette agent chat` terminal mode now supports these approval flows, with three new flags — `--root`, `--yes`, and `--unsafe` — to control permission levels and auto-approval. Together these additions enable fully conversational, autonomous modification of SQLite databases via an AI agent.