Query Steampipe

Steampipe is built on PostgreSQL, and you can use standard SQL syntax to query Steampipe. It's easy to get started writing queries, and the Steampipe Hub provides thousands of example queries that you can use or modify for your purposes. There are example queries for each table in every plugin, and you can also browse, search, and view the queries in every published mod!

Interactive Query Shell

Steampipe provides an interactive query shell that provides features like auto-complete, syntax highlighting, and command history to assist you in writing queries.

To open the query shell, run steampipe query with no arguments:

$ steampipe query
>

Notice that the prompt changes, indicating that you are in the Steampipe shell.

You can exit the query shell by pressing Ctrl+d on a blank line, or using the .exit command.

Non-interactive (batch) query mode

The Steampipe interactive query shell is a great platform for exploring your data and developing queries, but Steampipe is more than just a query shell!

Steampipe allows you to run a query in batch mode and write the results to standard output (stdout). This is useful if you wish to redirect the output to a file, pipe to another command, or export data for use in other tools.

To run a query from the command line, specify the query as an argument to steampipe query:

steampipe query "select vpc_id, cidr_block, state from aws_vpc"

Third Party Tools

Because Steampipe is built on Postgres, you can connect to the Steampipe database with 3rd party tools, or write code against your database using your favorite library!