ADBC driver
ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) is a vendor-neutral API for connecting to databases and exchanging data in Apache Arrow format. The DuckDB ADBC driver supports MotherDuck out of the box.
ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) is a vendor-neutral API for connecting to databases and exchanging data in Apache Arrow format. The DuckDB ADBC driver supports MotherDuck out of the box, so any ADBC-compatible application can query MotherDuck and receive results as Arrow data. For details on the driver itself, see ADBC in the DuckDB documentation.
Installation
Install DuckDB as an ADBC driver with dbc, a package manager built by Columnar for installing and managing ADBC drivers:
dbc install duckdb
Connect to MotherDuck
To reach MotherDuck, set the database URI field to a MotherDuck database name with the md: prefix:
md:my_database
With no token configured, the driver opens a browser sign-in prompt, and every application that uses the URI prompts again each session. To authenticate the URI itself, append your access token as a connection string parameter:
md:my_database?motherduck_token=<your_motherduck_token>
A URI with an embedded token is a credential. Store it like a password rather than committing it to configuration files or source control.