Gridbase

gridbase

gridbase is a workbench for Airtable. It walks a base the way a person would: first the list of bases a token can reach, then the tables inside one base and the fields and views each table declares, then the records themselves — listed, filtered by formula, searched by text, or fetched one at a time. The same surface writes back: records can be created, updated, and deleted, tables and fields can be created and renamed, and comments can be attached to records and read again. One binary serves a command-line interface and a stdio MCP server.

An Airtable personal access token is required. Put it in the AIRTABLE_API_KEY environment variable; it is sent to the API as an Authorization: Bearer header and never appears in output. When the variable is missing, every call fails with an error that names it, before any request is made. The token needs the schema.bases:read and data.records:read scopes at minimum, plus the matching write scopes for the write tools.

Install

npx @reneturcios/gridbase bases

Or run the container image:

docker run -i -e AIRTABLE_API_KEY ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/gridbase

The container defaults to the MCP server (see below). Pass CLI arguments to use it as a CLI instead.

CLI

export AIRTABLE_API_KEY="pat..."
gridbase basesgridbase tables appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --detail fullgridbase describe appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXXgridbase records appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --max 25 --filter "{Status}='Open'"gridbase search appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "quarterly report"gridbase get appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX recXXXXXXXXXXXXXXgridbase create appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX '{"Name":"New task","Status":"Open"}'gridbase update appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX '[{"id":"recXXXXXXXXXXXXXX","fields":{"Status":"Done"}}]'gridbase delete appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX recXXXXXXXXXXXXXXgridbase create-table appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Reports '[{"name":"Title","type":"singleLineText"}]'gridbase comment appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX recXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Looks good"gridbase comments appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX tblXXXXXXXXXXXXXX recXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --page-size 10
gridbase --version

Each command prints the upstream JSON payload. Exit codes: 0 on success, 1 when a call fails (including a missing AIRTABLE_API_KEY or an API error), 2 for usage errors.

MCP server

One bin serves both faces. The mcp subcommand starts a stdio MCP server:

npx -y @reneturcios/gridbase mcp

MCP client configuration:

{  "mcpServers": {    "gridbase": {      "command": "npx",      "args": ["-y", "@reneturcios/gridbase", "mcp"],      "env": { "AIRTABLE_API_KEY": "pat..." }    }  }}

Tools

Airtable offers no text-search endpoint, so search_records lists the table (bounded by maxRecords) and keeps the records whose field values contain the term, restricted to fieldIds when supplied. Schema reads trim the meta payload themselves: tableIdentifiersOnly keeps table IDs and names, identifiersOnly also reduces fields and views to IDs and names, and full (the default) returns everything.

Development

npm installnpm run build   # tsc -> dist/npm test        # node test runner over test/*.test.ts, no network (fake fetch fixtures)npm run dev     # run the CLI from source via tsx

License

MIT — see LICENSE.