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DuckDB queries Hugging Face datasets directly over `hf://`

duckdb.org by The DuckDB team 6 min read Editor score 7/10

DuckDB can query CSV, JSONL, and Parquet files in Hugging Face dataset repositories through `hf://` without downloading them first. This can simplify exploratory analysis and access to ML datasets without a separate warehouse.

What: DuckDB can query Hugging Face dataset files directly through the hf:// protocol, without first downloading them.
How: The hf:// scheme builds on httpfs to resolve dataset repositories to files, and DuckDB reads only the columns a query needs.
Why it matters: For AI data workflows, querying remote datasets in place avoids a separate copy before analysis.

DuckDB uses the hf:// path scheme and httpfs to read dataset files hosted on Hugging Face Hub. Sketched from the article's own text.

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