the build

A hook that fires exactly once at promotion or restore completion—but the server is neither ready nor recovering while your command runs.

The planner charges `random_page_cost` per index page based on how uncorrelated the index is—but the name lies.

Dumping across major versions?

Configure a replication slot name on your standby and the upstream keeps WAL forever—until the slot itself fills your disk or the standby dies holding an old… (I consult on PostgreSQL through PGX Inc..)

Sooner or later, someone on the team reads about write skew.

`primary_conninfo` tells a standby where to stream WAL from—but only after the archive and pg_wal run dry.

Debugging PostgreSQL connections requires stopping a backend before it does anything interesting.

The `port` parameter does double duty: it names the TCP socket and the Unix socket file too.

On August 25, Robert Haas opened a pgsql-hackers thread like this: I asked Claude to evaluate which v19 patches were the scariest based on the number and type of bugs fixed post-freeze.

Override PostgreSQL's prepared statement plan choice when its cost estimates go wrong on skewed data.

What `password_encryption` actually controls: how PostgreSQL hashes new passwords when you hand it clear text.

Whether your query's leader process joins the work or just supervises depends on this boolean, and the performance question it settles is subtle.

PostgreSQL's parallel query planner charges two fees for going parallel: a setup cost per Gather node and a per-row cost for moving data from workers to… (I consult on PostgreSQL through PGX Inc..)

In October 2014, a developer wrote to a PostgreSQL mailing list with a problem.

Tom Lane deleted `array_nulls` in PostgreSQL 20, but `pg_dump` never set it, so restores into databases with it disabled silently corrupt text arrays.

On September 30, AWS announced that Aurora PostgreSQL can now query Apache Iceberg and Parquet data directly.

PostgreSQL 18's OAuth support delegates token validation to third-party libraries.

Most projects choose a license the way most people choose a default shell: it was already on fire there when they arrived.

PostgreSQL 18's new `num_os_semaphores` preset reports how many OS semaphores the server needs—a formula that drifted wrong for twelve years until the… (I consult on PostgreSQL through PGX Inc..)

Dive deeper into connection pooling with five more PostgreSQL poolers: Odyssey, pgagroal, Supavisor, PgDoorman, and ProxySQL, plus where your cloud already… (I consult on PostgreSQL through PGX Inc..)

The `notify_buffers` GUC tunes a 128kB cache for PostgreSQL's LISTEN/NOTIFY queue—and almost never matters.

PostgreSQL connection poolers lie to both sides of the wire: your app thinks it has thousands of connections while the database sees dozens.

pgvector 0.8.7 fixes CVE-2026-103484: a database user who can create an IVFFlat index can write out of bounds in the backend, which can lead to arbitrary code execution.

When one long transaction holds row locks on thousands of parents, multixact cache misses can tank insert throughput.

`min_wal_size` sets a floor under WAL recycling, not a retention policy—confusing many operators who lose standbys when the floor causes segments to be… (I consult on PostgreSQL through PGX Inc..)

Parallel scans need a minimum table or index size to be considered—but that minimum also sets the bottom rung of the ladder the planner climbs to decide how… (I consult on PostgreSQL through PGX Inc..)

PgBouncer 1.26.0 patches three CVEs, two triggerable without authentication.

Siemens shut down OpenRadioss and deleted its repository; the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation forked it as OpenCourant the same day.

PostgreSQL 18 added md5_password_warnings to suppress deprecation notices about MD5 passwords—but it only warns when setting them, not when using them.

PostgreSQL's `max_worker_processes` hasn't budged since 2014, but parallel queries, logical replication, and extensions keep demanding slots.

`max_wal_size` is a checkpoint trigger, not a maximum—and the real cost is paid by setting it too low, not too high.

Errata: the max_connections post told you to size that parameter for “the replication connections.”

max_sync_workers_per_subscription parallelizes table copies across tables, not within them.

`max_standby_streaming_delay` buys you replication lag, not query time—and when the budget runs out, queries get canceled regardless of how long they've…

Replication slots can silently fill your disk and crash the primary, or you can set `max_slot_wal_keep_size` to kill a stalled replica instead.

`max_replication_slots` sizes a shared-memory array that holds every replication slot, regardless of type or state.

Prepared transactions are orphaned sessions that hold locks and block vacuum indefinitely.

max_pred_locks_per_transaction has the naming problem of max_locks_per_transaction, and then one of its own.

ClickHouse released WalShadow last week, and it does something very… brave: it replicates PostgreSQL into ClickHouse without using logical decoding at all.

PostgreSQL's serializable isolation remembers what each transaction reads with limited shared memory, so it trades tuple locks for page locks, then page locks…

Last Wednesday the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the DMCA claims in Doe v.

Parallel apply workers speed up logical replication of large transactions—but only if you have enough of them.

Neither of these parameters means what its name says. max_parallel_workers_per_gather is the most workers the planner is allowed to request for one plan node, and the planner usually requests fewer. max_parallel_workers is documented as a limit for the wh…

max_parallel_maintenance_workers is a ceiling, and most of the time something lower gets there first.

Nobody asked for max_notify_queue_pages.

Role-level timeouts and read-only flags sound safe until you realize the session can change them in one statement.

When a logical replication worker pool runs dry, subscriptions don't fail—they just stop making progress, filling your logs with warnings every five seconds…

`max_locks_per_transaction` isn't about transactions or limits—it sizes the cluster-wide lock table, and its misleading name has confused PostgreSQL users for…

PostgreSQL 19's release crumbled under its own ambition: eight major features landed in five weeks before freeze, three committers pulled their work, and a…

PostgreSQL's `max_index_keys` has counted more than keys since INCLUDE columns arrived in version 11, but stays locked at 32 due to on-disk tuple format…