RetoolDB Connection Pooling

Hello,

I noticed the only connection string listed in the UI is like this

postgresql://retool:@ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.retooldb.com/retool?sslmode=require

However I also discovered I can connect via

postgresql://retool:@ep-cool-darkness-123456-pooler.us-east-2.retooldb.com/retool?sslmode=require

I believe this connects to Neon's connection pooler which is what RetoolDB is built on. This is super useful if it is since it can manage connection pooling when connecting from external sources to my RetoolDB.

Can I rely on this connection string even though it's not documented anywhere? Will this properly use Neon's connection pooler?
Why isn't this connection string provided in the UI / any documentation around it?

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Hey @Devin_Kopp, welcome to the forum!

Thanks for sharing, super helpful.

My guess is that many docs around the db are in need of an update. Retool only recently migrated to Neon, whilst also preparing to launch Agents and Copilot, so can imagine things being dropped.

There's been a lot of nice tricks other folks have flagged with regards to using/leveraging Neon's functionality. So the hope is that Retool can provide a nice doc of what us 100% supported and what to use at our own risk ( or simply not compatible with Retool's UI)

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Hi @Devin_Kopp, welcome to the forum!

Good catch about the connection pooling, I confirmed with some engineers that we intend to use connection pooling for all connection strings, and -pooler will eventually be appended automatically in the future. Since we will eventually be doing that, we may not be going as far as releasing a doc saying to add it yourself, so for now it is a workaround for those having issues without it.

Great news - thanks Mike!

Just to confirm, the -pooler addition will still be allowed right? And it'll just be defaulted to add it for those that don't use it already correct?

Thanks,
Devin

Yes that is correct!

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