Just launched Datasette Apps - a plugin for Datasette that lets you host full HTML+JS apps in an iframe sandbox that can query your database and do interesting things with your data https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/18/datasette-apps/
Many users praise the Datasette Apps Plugin for adding persistence, write access, and safe sandboxing that turns AI artifacts into durable interactive database apps.
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Think of this as Claude Artifacts reimagined for Datasette - you get all the power of artifacts but with a JSON API to a full relational database, allowing your HTML+JS apps to access and store data in all shapes and sizes
Just launched Datasette Apps - a plugin for Datasette that lets you host full HTML+JS apps in an iframe sandbox that can query your database and do interesting things with your data https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/18/datasette-apps/
Lots more information in this post on the Datasette project blog, including details on our live demo and uv one-liners you can use to try this out on your own machine https://datasette.io/blog/2026/datasette-apps/
Think of this as Claude Artifacts reimagined for Datasette - you get all the power of artifacts but with a JSON API to a full relational database, allowing your HTML+JS apps to access and store data in all shapes and sizes
@simonw Recurring pattern we're seeing everywhere, likewise thinking through high road vs low road for @LOUIE_AI + @Graphistry community
Any differences you're thinking vs @motherduck 's vibes? ref: https://motherduck.com/blog/replacing-our-bi-tool-with-dives/
@simonw the part that makes this more than a static artifact is the iframe being able to query a real db. how are you scoping what each app is allowed to read?
@simonw Sécurité du sandbox dépendra de la gestion des headers CORS — iframe pas magique sans politique strict.
@simonw The gap with artifacts was always data. Build something cool but it lives nowhere. No persistence.
This closes it. Sandbox plus a real database. That's actually how you ship.
@simonw @LOUIE_AI @Graphistry @motherduck *dives
@simonw The database boundary feels like the key shift here.
Artifacts are useful as one-off output, but once they can run against real data with sandboxing, permissions, logs, and stored writes, they start looking less like “AI output” and more like durable software surfaces.
@simonw Stored-query allow-list is the part that scales. AI generates the app, but writes still route through queries you signed off on. Capability gating plus sandbox, not sandbox alone.
@simonw Artifacts have been stuck in read-only - great UI generation but no persistence. This adds write access to real databases. Suddenly agents can actually store state instead of generating fresh every call. That's the production piece.
@simonw this is cool :D
@simonw This is the missing piece for turning static Datasette dashboards into actual interactive apps. If the sandbox handles auth scoping cleanly, it could unlock a lot of internal tooling use cases.
@simonw most side projects die at the setup step.
once it's a one-liner, you go from "maybe 5 people try it" to something that actually spreads. that's the whole game.
@simonw the sandbox bit is neat, especially read-only SQL by default plus the CSP/no outside requests thing. feels like a nice shape for little local tools around data