Is there a way to get a more recent version of DuckDB?

[gordonjb]

Hi, I have a query that doesn't work in DuckDB v1.1.1 that Framework ships with, but does work as of at least v1.2.2. Is there a way to get a more recent version of DuckDB to run in Framework?

[datadavev]

A hack, but manually editing node_modules/@observablehq/framework/dist/duckdb.js and setting:

const DUCKDB_WASM_VERSION = "1.29.1-dev269.0";
const DUCKDB_VERSION = "1.3.2";

works for my use case. Of course, the change is temporary and running yarn upgrade will blow it away and revert back to the framework distribution.

Patch:

6,7c6,7
< const DUCKDB_WASM_VERSION = "1.29.0";
< const DUCKDB_VERSION = "1.1.1";
---
> const DUCKDB_WASM_VERSION = "1.29.1-dev269.0";
> const DUCKDB_VERSION = "1.3.2";

[gordonjb]

Works perfectly, thanks! Does the job for the interim certainly.

[mbostock]

The issue here is that the DuckDB-Wasm distribution doesn’t correctly update the latest tag when they publish to npm, so we don’t know what the latest stable release is. They only maintain the next tag which is typically used to denote unstable releases. We filed duckdb/duckdb-wasm#1994 in April 2025 (and was previously reported back in January 2024) but have not received any response.

[datadavev]

Anyone who happens to follow this approach, please be aware of a recent supply chain compromise to DuckDB packages:

DuckDB NPM packages 1.3.3 and 1.29.2 compromised with malware

Also note that the latest tag for duckdb-wasm is now 1.30.0.