hi, dev building shaper here. shaper allows you to visualize data and build dashboards just by writing sql. the sql runs in duckdb so you can use all duckdb features. its for when you are looking for a minimal tool that allows you to just work in code. you can use shaper to build dashboards that you share internally or also for customer-facing dashboards you want to embed into another application.
shaper leans into doing everything as code. instead of using a custom UI you can use your own editor and AI agent to generate dashboards for you. shaper is for people happy to use code. it doesn't try to provide self-serve functionality.
And I think that's exactly what makes it so clever. Three years ago, I would have considered this decision risky. But with the live sync feature and "just SQL" as the language for the dashboard builder, it's so powerful—thanks to Claude Code, for example!