Configuration

Tabularis is designed to work perfectly out-of-the-box, but offers extensive configuration options via the UI Settings panel and an underlying config.json file.

Accessing Settings

Open the Settings panel from:

Menu: Tabularis → Preferences (macOS) or File → Settings (Windows/Linux)
Keyboard shortcut: Cmd/Ctrl + ,
Sidebar: Click the gear icon at the bottom of the left sidebar

General Settings

Language Support: Native translations for English, Italian, and Spanish. The app defaults to your OS locale. Changing the language requires a restart.
Startup Behavior: Configure whether to launch with a blank slate or restore the exact tabs, split-pane layouts, and active connections from your previous session.
Update Checks: Enable or disable automatic update checks on startup. Checks query the GitHub Releases API — no version data is sent, only a GET request is made.

Storage Paths & config.json

Tabularis stores non-sensitive configuration, UI preferences, and connection metadata in a central config.json. Passwords and SSH passphrases are NEVER stored here — they live exclusively in your OS keychain.

File Locations

Platform	Path
Windows	`%APPDATA%\tabularis\config.json`
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/tabularis/config.json`
Linux	`~/.config/tabularis/config.json`

Manually Editing config.json

You can edit the file manually while the application is closed. Editing while Tabularis is running will likely result in your changes being overwritten when the app writes its state on exit.

A minimal valid config.json looks like:

{
  "theme": "tabularis-dark",
  "language": "auto",
  "fontSize": 14,
  "aiEnabled": false
}

Any key omitted from the file falls back to its default value. You do not need a complete file.

`config.json` Full Reference

Key	Type	Default	Description
`theme`	`string`	`"tabularis-dark"`	Active UI theme ID. See Themes.
`language`	`string`	`"auto"`	Preferred locale: `en`, `it`, `es`, or `auto` (follows OS).
`resultPageSize`	`number`	`100`	Rows fetched per pagination request in the Data Grid.
`fontFamily`	`string`	`"JetBrains Mono"`	Editor font. Must be installed on the system.
`fontSize`	`number`	`14`	Editor font size in pixels.
`aiEnabled`	`boolean`	`false`	Master toggle for all AI features.
`aiProvider`	`string`	`"openai"`	Active AI provider: `openai`, `anthropic`, `ollama`, `openrouter`, `custom-openai`.
`aiModel`	`string`	`"gpt-4o"`	The model identifier string sent to the provider.
`aiCustomModels`	`object`	`null`	Custom model lists per provider (map of provider ID → string[]).
`aiOllamaPort`	`number`	`11434`	Local port for the Ollama daemon.
`aiCustomOpenaiUrl`	`string`	`null`	Base URL for OpenAI-compatible endpoints (e.g., LM Studio, vLLM).
`aiCustomOpenaiModel`	`string`	`null`	Model name to use with the custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
`checkForUpdates`	`boolean`	`true`	Enable or disable update checks entirely.
`autoCheckUpdatesOnStartup`	`boolean`	`true`	Checks GitHub Releases API on boot.
`lastDismissedVersion`	`string`	`null`	Version string of the last dismissed update notification.
`erDiagramDefaultLayout`	`string`	`"TB"`	`TB` (Top-Bottom) or `LR` (Left-Right) for Dagre layout.
`schemaPreferences`	`object`	`{}`	Per-connection active schema for DDL operations (map of connection ID → schema name).
`selectedSchemas`	`object`	`{}`	Per-connection visible schemas in the sidebar (map of connection ID → string[]).
`maxBlobSize`	`number`	`1048576`	Max bytes to load into UI for BLOB/bytea columns (default 1 MB).
`activeExternalDrivers`	`string[]`	`[]`	List of plugin driver IDs loaded at startup.
`customRegistryUrl`	`string`	`null`	Custom URL for the plugin registry. Overrides the default official registry when fetching and installing plugins.

Application Logs

For debugging connection failures, plugin crashes, or unexpected behavior, Tabularis writes structured logs.

Log File Locations

Platform	Path
macOS	`~/Library/Logs/tabularis/`
Windows	`%APPDATA%\tabularis\logs\`
Linux	`~/.cache/tabularis/`

Runtime Debug Logging

Launch Tabularis from the terminal with the RUST_LOG environment variable for real-time debug output:

# All debug messages from the Tabularis crate
RUST_LOG=tabularis=debug tabularis

# Debug messages from all crates (very verbose)
RUST_LOG=debug tabularis

# Only errors and warnings
RUST_LOG=warn tabularis

The RUST_LOG directive supports error, warn, info, debug, and trace levels, with info being the default for production builds.

What to Look for in Logs

When troubleshooting a connection issue, search the log file for entries related to the connection UUID:

grep "conn-" ~/Library/Logs/io.github.debba.tabularis/tabularis.log | tail -50

SSH tunnel events are prefixed with [ssh], database driver events with [driver], and plugin events with [plugin:<plugin-id>].

Privacy & Telemetry

Tabularis is built with a strict zero-telemetry policy.

No analytics SDKs: We do not embed Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Sentry (in production), or any third-party tracking library.
No crash reporting: Panics are written to the local log file only. No automatic crash reports are sent anywhere.
No usage data: Feature usage, query counts, session duration — none of this is tracked or transmitted.
Network requests made by Tabularis:
- Your configured database host(s)
- api.github.com/repos/debba/tabularis/releases/latest (for update checks, if enabled)
- Your chosen AI provider endpoint (only if AI is enabled and you trigger it)
- Any URLs referenced in plugins you have installed

You can verify all outgoing network connections using lsof -i (macOS/Linux) or Resource Monitor (Windows) while the application runs.

Resetting to Defaults

To reset all settings to factory defaults:

Close Tabularis completely.
Delete or rename the config.json file.
Relaunch Tabularis. A fresh config.json with all defaults will be created.

Important: This does NOT delete saved connections. Connection metadata is stored in a separate connections.json file in the same directory. To also remove connections, delete connections.json. Passwords stored in the OS keychain must be removed manually (via Keychain Access on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows, or secret-tool on Linux).