Be wary: this README contains spoilers for the New York Times Connections puzzle for 2026-02-26 and 2026-02-27 in America/New_York time.
DuckDB is already more fun than a barrel of ducks. But sometimes the toil of crunching entities leaves you wanting a little side quest, a diversion from your data destination. What if you could take a break and play the New York Times Connections puzzle, all without leaving your DuckDB REPL?
Introducing the first database that lets you play the New York Times
Connections puzzle: connections.duckdb.
Demo (approximately 15 seconds)
Start DuckDB with the database loaded, either by downloading a release or using the convenient hosted version:
$ duckdb https://www.tjak.dev/connections.duckdbFrom within a REPL:
D ATTACH 'https://www.tjak.dev/connections.duckdb' as connections (READ_ONLY);
D USE connections;
See today's words:
D select word from todays_words;
┌────────────┐
│ word │
│ varchar │
├────────────┤
│ JUDAS │
│ DRILL │
│ QUALITY │
│ BUTTERFLY │
│ FRENCH │
│ BENCH │
│ AIR │
│ RIPPLE │
│ SNAKE │
│ SNOWBALL │
│ TRAITOR │
│ MANNER │
│ DOMINO │
│ PRINTING │
│ IMPRESSION │
│ TURNCOAT │
├────────────┤
│ 16 rows │
└────────────┘
See today's puzzle formatted in a 4x4 grid:
D select * from todays_puzzle;
┌─────────┬──────────┬────────────┬───────────┐
│ word1 │ word2 │ word3 │ word4 │
│ varchar │ varchar │ varchar │ varchar │
├─────────┼──────────┼────────────┼───────────┤
│ JUDAS │ DRILL │ QUALITY │ BUTTERFLY │
│ FRENCH │ BENCH │ AIR │ RIPPLE │
│ SNAKE │ SNOWBALL │ TRAITOR │ MANNER │
│ DOMINO │ PRINTING │ IMPRESSION │ TURNCOAT │
└─────────┴──────────┴────────────┴───────────┘
Check a guess of four words which may make a category. If incorrect, the query
will return an "incorrect" status as well as the colored tiles representing
the categories of your guess. If correct, the query will return a "correct"
status and give you the category's title.
D SELECT * FROM guess_category_today(['JUDAS', 'DRILL', 'QUALITY', 'BUTTERFLY']);
┌───────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ status │ emoji │ category │
│ varchar │ varchar │ varchar │
├───────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ incorrect │ 🟨🟪🟩🟦 │ NULL │
└───────────┴──────────┴──────────┘
D SELECT * FROM guess_category_today(['IMPRESSION', 'AIR', 'QUALITY', 'MANNER']);
┌─────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ status │ emoji │ category │
│ varchar │ varchar │ varchar │
├─────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ correct │ 🟩🟩🟩🟩 │ AURA │
└─────────┴──────────┴──────────┘┘
You're on your own to keep the score and keep yourself honest. Check back soon for automated scorekeeping!
See the categories for today's puzzle:
D select title as category, unnest(cards).content as word from todays_categories;
┌───────────────────────────────────┬────────────┐
│ category │ word │
│ varchar │ varchar │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ BACKSTABBER │ JUDAS │
│ BACKSTABBER │ SNAKE │
│ BACKSTABBER │ TRAITOR │
│ BACKSTABBER │ TURNCOAT │
│ AURA │ AIR │
│ AURA │ IMPRESSION │
│ AURA │ MANNER │
│ AURA │ QUALITY │
│ KINDS OF CHAIN REACTION "EFFECTS" │ BUTTERFLY │
│ KINDS OF CHAIN REACTION "EFFECTS" │ DOMINO │
│ KINDS OF CHAIN REACTION "EFFECTS" │ RIPPLE │
│ KINDS OF CHAIN REACTION "EFFECTS" │ SNOWBALL │
│ ___ PRESS │ BENCH │
│ ___ PRESS │ DRILL │
│ ___ PRESS │ FRENCH │
│ ___ PRESS │ PRINTING │
├───────────────────────────────────┴────────────┤
│ 16 rows 2 columns │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
See the categories for the puzzle from date 2026-02-26:
D select title as category, unnest(cards).content as word from connections_categories('2026-02-26');
┌──────────────────────────┬───────────────────┐
│ category │ word │
│ varchar │ varchar │
├──────────────────────────┼───────────────────┤
│ PIVOTAL POINT │ CROSSROADS │
│ PIVOTAL POINT │ LANDMARK │
│ PIVOTAL POINT │ MILESTONE │
│ PIVOTAL POINT │ WATERSHED │
│ GREEN THINGS │ GRASSHOPPER │
│ GREEN THINGS │ SHAMROCK │
│ GREEN THINGS │ STATUE OF LIBERTY │
│ GREEN THINGS │ WASABI │
│ ELEMENTS OF JOKE-TELLING │ CALLBACK │
│ ELEMENTS OF JOKE-TELLING │ PUNCHLINE │
│ ELEMENTS OF JOKE-TELLING │ SETUP │
│ ELEMENTS OF JOKE-TELLING │ TIMING │
│ "___ PLEASE" │ ATTENTION │
│ "___ PLEASE" │ CHECK │
│ "___ PLEASE" │ DRUMROLL │
│ "___ PLEASE" │ PRETTY │
├──────────────────────────┴───────────────────┤
│ 16 rows 2 columns │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Play a selection of historical games using these table macros. The ymd
argument should be an ISO 8601-formatted date like "2026-02-26".
SELECT * FROM connections_words(ymd)SELECT * FROM connections_puzzle(ymd)SELECT * FROM guess_category_date(ymd, guess)
connections.duckdb contains no data from the New York Times. Instead, it
contains code, in the form of DuckDB-flavored SQL macros and views, which
provide convenient access to the game's publicly accessible data feed through
DuckDB's read_json function. Invoking this code from a DuckDB connection
attached to the database allows the connected user or agent to play the
Connections game locally using data resident in-memory. User guesses are not
sent to the New York Times.
Unfortunately, no: the New York Times's API endpoint does not allow for cross-origin resource sharing. You can open the connections.duckdb database, but all queries will fail.
There is a small test suite written in Python. To run it:
uv run pytest
Or:
make test
source code (c) 2026 Tom Jakubowski, published under the MIT license
I am a happy player and admirer of the Connections game which is owned by the New York Times and edited by Wyna Liu.