Actionist·CrateDB
CrateDB

CrateDB

· #322 most-used

Run SQL analytics on massive datasets in near real-time

DatabaseAnalyticsDeveloperCloud & InfrastructureMonitoring & Alerts

CrateDB is a distributed SQL database built for storing and analyzing massive amounts of machine data, time-series events, and documents in near real-time — even under complex queries at petabyte scale. It combines the familiarity of standard SQL with the horizontal scalability of a NoSQL system, and is PostgreSQL wire-protocol compatible. Connect it to Actionist and your agents can execute SQL queries on demand, insert events from any connected app into CrateDB as they happen, run scheduled analytics aggregations and post results to Slack or Google Sheets, enforce data retention policies automatically, and monitor cluster health — all without anyone opening a database client.

Try CrateDB with ActionistVisit CrateDB
Average time saved
10 hours
per person · per month
≈ 1 workdays back

Eliminates manual work. Agents eliminate the manual cycle of opening database clients to run queries, copying results into spreadsheets, and maintaining data retention and compliance logs by hand.

Schedule

What your CrateDB agent runs on autopilot

A week of scheduled jobs your Actionist agent will execute on your behalf.

28Scheduled jobs
7Agents at work
24/7Always on
Agents
Tue–Thu
Tue
Wed
Thu
7a
8a
9a
10a
11a
12p
1p
2p
3p
4p
5p
6p
Multi-app workflows

CrateDB × every other app you use

End-to-end automations that span multiple apps — each one a real business outcome.

6Workflows
5Apps spanned
~11 hrsSaved / week
6Personas served
For data engineering
Featured3 apps

Google Sheets exports land in CrateDB without manual imports

When new rows appear in the events export Google Sheet, the agent checks for duplicates, bulk-inserts the new records into CrateDB, verifies the final row count, and posts a confirmation to Slack — turning a previously manual import process into a fully automated pipeline.

~4 hrs

Time saved for your team — every week, on autopilot

The flow
Trigger·When new rows appear in the events export Google Sheet
Trigger
Step 1
Google Sheets
Detect new row added to the events export sheet
read
Step 2
CrateDB
Check whether a row with this event_id already exists in CrateDB
write
Step 3
CrateDB
Bulk insert new event rows into the events table
read
Step 4
CrateDB
Run aggregation query to verify row counts post-insert
write
Step 5
Slack
Post insert confirmation with row count to #data-platform
Result
Bulk insert new event rows into the events tablePost insert confirmation with row count to #data-platform
The win
Saved per run
45 min
Runs / week
~5×
No manual data imports — events reach CrateDB within about a minute of the export
Driven byOperations Agent
ROI

Savings

What your team gets back — two angles: what you stop doing manually, and what that's worth.

Without Actionist

What you do manually today

With Actionist

What your agent runs for you

  • Sales
    20 min / week
    Manual account data hunting before calls

    Reps ask the data team to pull usage data before key calls, wait for a CSV, and interpret raw numbers without context — or they go into the call without product usage data at all.

    Sales Agent
    0 min
    Agent queries CrateDB for account health before every call

    Before a renewal or upsell call, the agent queries CrateDB's product_events table for 90-day feature usage and session frequency, and posts a brief to the rep's Slack DM — the rep walks in prepared without any manual data pull.

  • Marketing
    45 min / week
    Manual weekly analytics report assembly

    A marketer or analyst runs queries manually in a database client, copies the results into a spreadsheet, and formats the digest each Monday — taking 30-60 minutes before the review can start.

    Marketing Agent
    0 min
    Agent delivers weekly analytics digest from CrateDB automatically

    Every Monday the agent runs aggregation queries against CrateDB and posts session counts, conversion rates, and channel breakdowns to the #marketing Slack channel — the team enters the review with current data.

  • Customer Support
    35 min / week
    Manual log analysis and SLA checks

    Support engineers manually query the database or scan raw log files to identify recurring error patterns, spending 30+ minutes each morning before they can triage the day's issues.

    Customer Support Agent
    0 min
    Agent surfaces error patterns and SLA status from CrateDB daily

    The agent runs scheduled queries against CrateDB's application_logs and ticket_events tables each morning, posting error clusters and SLA status to Slack before the standup — engineers see real patterns, not gut feelings.

  • Human Resources
    25 min / week
    Manual headcount spreadsheet maintenance

    HR manually updates a spreadsheet with each hire, departure, and role change each week — a 20-30 minute task that is prone to omissions and inconsistent formatting.

    Human Resources Agent
    0 min
    Agent logs headcount events to CrateDB weekly without manual entry

    Each Monday the agent inserts headcount changes (hires, departures, role changes) into CrateDB's headcount_log table, building a time-series record that feeds the quarterly workforce report automatically.

  • Finance
    22 min / week
    Manual usage data extraction and reconciliation

    Finance requests usage data from the data team, waits for a CSV export, manually reconciles it against the billing system, and formats the output for the monthly report — a 90-minute process each billing cycle.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent aggregates billing and cost data from CrateDB for every report

    At billing close the agent runs aggregation queries against CrateDB's usage_events table, writes totals to the billing_summary table, and exports a reconciliation sheet — the billing data pipeline runs without any manual database work.

  • Operations
    60 min / week
    Manual cluster monitoring and retention enforcement

    An operations engineer logs into CrateDB daily to run health checks, manually kills long-running queries when spotted, and periodically runs DELETE scripts to enforce retention — a recurring operational burden with no audit trail.

    Operations Agent
    0 min
    Agent monitors CrateDB cluster health and enforces retention daily

    The agent runs daily cluster health checks, weekly long-running-query reports, and Friday retention-policy deletions — alerting on issues and logging compliance evidence without any human opening a database client.

  • Legal
    30 min / week
    Manual GDPR deletion and access audit process

    Legal emails the data team to request row deletions, waits for confirmation, manually logs the outcome in a spreadsheet, and runs quarterly access audits by asking for sys.user_privileges exports — slow, manual, and poorly documented.

    Legal Agent
    0 min
    Agent executes GDPR deletions and compliance audits in CrateDB automatically

    When a deletion request arrives, the agent deletes matching rows across all relevant CrateDB tables, logs the counts to the compliance_log, and updates the Notion record — fully executed and documented within about a minute.

+ 100s of other CrateDB automations
Average time saved
24 hrs / person / month
Calculator

Calculate what your team saves

Team size
5 people
Hourly rate
$75 / hr
Hours saved / week
13
Hours saved / year
625
Annual ROI
$46,875

Based on CrateDB's typical team usage — the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~2.5 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.

Connect

How to plug CrateDB into Actionist

Pick the connection method that suits your environment.

Connect to CrateDB Cloud using an API key and your cluster's HTTP endpoint URL. The agent sends SQL statements to the /_sql endpoint over HTTPS with the API key in the Authorization header.

1
Generate an API key

In the CrateDB Cloud Console, go to Settings → API Keys and click Create API Key. Copy the key — you will only see it once.

2
Copy your cluster URL

Find your cluster URL in the CrateDB Cloud Console under Cluster → Overview. It typically looks like https://your-cluster-name.cratedb.net:4200.

3
Paste into Actionist

Paste the API key and cluster URL into Actionist and click Test connection. Actionist will run a lightweight test query to confirm connectivity.

Credentials you'll need
API Key*
CrateDB Cloud Console → Settings → API Keys → Create API Key
Cluster URL*
Your CrateDB cluster URL, e.g. https://your-cluster.cratedb.net:4200
Actions

15 actions your agent can call

Read and write operations available to your Actionist agent.

Triggers

0 events your agent can react to

Events your agent watches for, and the actions it kicks off in response.

This app has no triggers yet.
FAQs

Questions about CrateDB + Actionist

How does Actionist connect to CrateDB?
Go to the Apps tab, find CrateDB, and click Connect. The standard path is an API key connection: Actionist will prompt you for your CrateDB Cloud API token and your cluster URL. Generate an API token in the CrateDB Cloud Console under Settings → API Keys, paste the token and your cluster endpoint into Actionist, and the agent runs a test SQL query to confirm the handshake before any scheduled tasks run.
What permissions does the Actionist agent need on my CrateDB cluster?
For read-only operations (executing SELECT queries, fetching table metadata) the agent needs a CrateDB user account with SELECT privileges on the target schemas. For write operations (INSERT and UPDATE) it additionally needs INSERT and UPDATE privileges on the relevant tables. The safest pattern is to create a dedicated Actionist service user in CrateDB with the minimum required privileges, so the agent never touches tables outside its intended scope.
Can Actionist handle high-volume time-series data inserts into CrateDB?
Yes. CrateDB is designed for high-volume, high-velocity data — think IoT sensor streams, application event logs, and time-series telemetry at petabyte scale. The agent can insert rows via the HTTP endpoint using bulk operations, making it efficient for batch writes. For continuous high-throughput ingestion, CrateDB's own client libraries (Python, Node.js, Java) or the PostgreSQL wire protocol are also options the agent can invoke, but direct HTTP SQL is the most straightforward integration path.
What are the most common things agents do with CrateDB?
The most common agent patterns with CrateDB are: (1) scheduled analytics queries — the agent runs a SQL SELECT with aggregations on a schedule and posts the results to a Slack digest or Google Sheets dashboard without anyone touching the database; (2) data pipeline writes — the agent inserts rows into CrateDB when events occur in other connected apps (new orders, form submissions, IoT alerts); (3) ad-hoc query on demand — someone asks a question in a chat and the agent translates it into SQL, runs it against CrateDB, and returns a plain-English summary; (4) cross-database sync — the agent reads from CrateDB and writes enriched results to a CRM or spreadsheet.
Does CrateDB support event-driven triggers for Actionist?
CrateDB does not emit webhook-based event triggers in the way that a message queue or change-data-capture system does. Instead, agents interact with CrateDB in a scheduled polling mode — the agent runs a SQL query on a defined cadence (e.g. every hour) and acts on what it finds. If you need event-driven behavior (act the moment a row changes), the recommended pattern is to pair CrateDB with an upstream event system: write events to a queue first, and have the agent both ingest into CrateDB and trigger downstream actions from the same event.
Does Actionist work with CrateDB's PostgreSQL compatibility mode?
CrateDB is PostgreSQL wire-protocol compatible, meaning the agent can also connect using any PostgreSQL-compatible driver. In practice, Actionist uses CrateDB's HTTP endpoint (port 4200, `/_sql`) for SQL operations, which accepts standard SQL in JSON format. This means any SQL you'd write for PostgreSQL — SELECT with window functions, aggregations, full-text search via MATCH(), geospatial queries — works in Actionist's Execute SQL Query action without modification.
Are there consistency caveats when Actionist inserts and then queries CrateDB in the same workflow?
CrateDB stores data in shards distributed across cluster nodes. When the agent executes an INSERT or UPDATE via the HTTP endpoint, CrateDB handles routing to the correct shard transparently. However, CrateDB's consistency model is eventual by default for some operations — a row inserted by the agent may not appear in an immediate SELECT on the same connection. For workflows that insert then immediately query, add a short wait or use `REFRESH TABLE` in the SQL to force a segment refresh before the read query runs.
Does Actionist work with both CrateDB Cloud and self-hosted CrateDB?
Yes. CrateDB Cloud (crate.io's managed service) and self-hosted CrateDB both work with Actionist, as long as the cluster's HTTP endpoint (default port 4200) is reachable from Actionist's cloud runtime. For self-hosted clusters behind a firewall, you'll need to whitelist Actionist's outbound IP ranges or expose the endpoint via a reverse proxy with TLS. CrateDB Cloud clusters are publicly accessible over HTTPS by default with token-based authentication.