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Onboarding Your Team with Pgcli for Faster, Consistent PostgreSQL Workflows

Andrios Robert

• 1 min read

The terminal was quiet except for the cursor blinking, waiting for your first command. You’ve decided to bring Pgcli into the team’s workflow. Now the onboarding process begins.

Pgcli is a PostgreSQL client with autocompletion and syntax highlighting. It is fast, efficient, and built for people who live in the command line. But simple installation isn’t enough. A clean onboarding process ensures every developer uses the tool the same way, on day one.

Start with environment setup. Install Pgcli using pip or your package manager:

pip install pgcli

Check the version with:

pgcli --version

Standardize configuration. Create a default .pgclirc file with preferred settings—prompt format, output table style, and history location. Place it in a shared repo or internal docs so every developer clones it during onboarding. This removes friction and avoids mismatched environments.

Next, define connection standards. Use consistent PGHOST, PGUSER, and PGDATABASE env vars. Add them to a .env file. Make sure sensitive data stays in .env.local or an encrypted secrets manager.

Include Pgcli usage in onboarding checklists. New users should practice:

  • Listing databases (\l)
  • Switching connections (\c dbname)
  • Running queries with autocomplete
  • Exporting results to CSV

Integrate Pgcli into daily routines. For local development, use Pgcli instead of psql. For production logs or debugging, stage-safe aliases reduce risk:

alias pg-prod="PGHOST=prod-db.company.com pgcli"

Document workflows where Pgcli excels, like quick schema inspection (\dt), searching table data, and scripting exports. This helps new hires see practical value from the first week.

Finally, automate onboarding steps. A bootstrap script can install Pgcli, pull configs, set env vars, and test connections in minutes. Automation removes manual errors and scales as your team grows.

A good onboarding process for Pgcli is more than setup—it’s about building consistency, speed, and accuracy into database work. Deploy it well, and every new team member gets productive faster, with fewer hiccups.

See this live in minutes at hoop.dev.