SQL Change Tracker (sqlct)

sqlct helps teams manage SQL schema changes like code: initialize a project, validate configuration, and generate reproducible scripts for Git and CI/CD.

Design goals

• Deterministic schema scripting
• Git-friendly schema representation
• CI/CD friendly workflows
• Tooling built entirely on publicly documented SQL Server metadata

What this tool will do

• Initialize a schema-folder project with required configuration and templates.
• Validate project configuration before scripting or automation runs.
• Generate deterministic SQL scripts from live database metadata.
• Preserve schema-folder conventions used in existing SQL source control workflows.
• Support tracked-table data scripting alongside schema workflows.

What it does today

• sqlct init [--project-dir <path>]
• sqlct config [--project-dir <path>]
• sqlct data track [<pattern>] [--object <pattern>] [--filter <regex>] [--project-dir <path>]
• sqlct data untrack [<pattern>] [--object <pattern>] [--filter <regex>] [--project-dir <path>]
• sqlct data list [--project-dir <path>]
• sqlct status [--project-dir <path>] [--target <db|folder>]
• sqlct diff [--project-dir <path>] [--target <db|folder>] [--object <selector>] [--filter <pattern>...] [--context <N>]
• sqlct pull [--project-dir <path>] [--object <selector>] [--filter <pattern>...]

Current runtime scope for status, diff, and pull covers:

• Assembly
• Table
• View
• StoredProcedure
• Function
• Sequence
• Schema
• Role
• User
• Synonym
• UserDefinedType
• XmlSchemaCollection
• PartitionFunction
• PartitionScheme
• MessageType
• Contract
• Queue
• Service
• Route
• EventNotification
• ServiceBinding
• FullTextCatalog
• FullTextStoplist
• SearchPropertyList

Schema scripting covers user-defined schemas and also emits built-in dbo when it has explicit schema permissions or schema-level extended properties; dbo is scripted without CREATE SCHEMA.

Stored procedure scripting covers T-SQL procedures and SQL CLR stored procedures (sys.objects.type = 'P' and PC).

Table scripting also includes standalone user-created table statistics (CREATE STATISTICS) as post-create table statements. Current statistics option coverage includes effective sampling (FULLSCAN or SAMPLE <n> PERCENT), PERSIST_SAMPLE_PERCENT = ON, NORECOMPUTE, INCREMENTAL=ON, and AUTO_DROP = ON|OFF when the source server exposes the required metadata. MAXDOP, STATS_STREAM, ROWCOUNT, and PAGECOUNT remain deferred.

Function scripting covers T-SQL scalar/table functions and SQL CLR scalar/table-valued functions (sys.objects.type = 'FS' and FT), including EXTERNAL NAME assembly bindings.

When data.trackedTables is configured, status, diff, and pull also process TableData artifacts for those explicit tracked tables.

--object selectors support:

• schema.name for schema-scoped objects
• name for schema-less objects
• type:name and type:schema.name for explicit selection
• data:schema.name for tracked table-data scripts

--filter accepts one or more .NET regex patterns matched against the full display name (schema.name or bare name); an object is included if any pattern matches. Matching is case-insensitive and full-string. Use .* for substring matching.

Selective data scripting

Tracked-table data scripting is configuration-driven.

• sqlct init scans the project directory for existing Data/*.sql files and proposes their table names as initial trackedTables; in interactive mode you are prompted to confirm, in non-interactive mode (--project-dir) they are added automatically.
• sqlct data track matches user tables in the current database against a positional pattern (schema.*, *.name, schema.name), --object <pattern>, or --filter <regex>, and asks for confirmation before updating data.trackedTables. Exactly one selector must be provided.
• sqlct data untrack previews tracked matches (same selector forms) and asks for confirmation before removing them.
• sqlct data list shows the currently tracked tables from config.
• sqlct pull creates, updates, and deletes Data/Schema.Table_Data.sql files for tracked tables.
• sqlct status and sqlct diff include TableData alongside schema artifacts, with separate schema/data summaries in status.

Example:

sqlct data track Sales.* --project-dir ./schema
sqlct data track --object Sales.Orders --project-dir ./schema
sqlct data track --filter '^Sales\.' --project-dir ./schema
sqlct data list --project-dir ./schema
sqlct diff --project-dir ./schema --object data:Sales.Customer
sqlct pull --project-dir ./schema

Build

dotnet build

Tests

dotnet test tests/SqlChangeTracker.Tests/SqlChangeTracker.Tests.csproj

Releases (NuGet)

Publish is handled by GitHub Actions on tag push.

1. Add NUGET_API_KEY to the repo GitHub Actions secrets.
2. Tag and push a release:

git tag v0.1.1
git push origin v0.1.1

This triggers .github/workflows/nuget-publish.yml to pack and publish the tool to NuGet using version 0.1.1.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a history of notable changes.