Getting Started

Server prerequisites

Your Postgres 14+ server must already have:

• wal_level = logical set in postgresql.conf required for logical replication.
• A role with the REPLICATION attribute (or superuser) for the connection string you give Wallaby.
• Headroom in max_replication_slots and max_wal_senders (at least one slot/sender per Wallaby cluster).

Wallaby validates these on startup and fails fast with an actionable error if something is missing.

Choose your configuration

Wallaby is configured through AddWallaby, with a storage provider supplying the model of what to capture and a sink as an output destination. Pick the setup that fits your application. Optionally, if you don't want Wallaby to capture anything itself, let it provision and maintain publications and replication slots for an external pgoutput consumer:

postgres

wal @ 16/B3762A94

providers

efcore provider

relational storage

EF Core Setup →

marten provider

document storage

Marten Setup →

external slots

provision publications + slots, no capture

External Slots →

sinks

meilisearch

search index

Meilisearch →

http

POST to any endpoint

HTTP →

opensearch

coming soon

custom

your own delivery target

Custom Sinks →

pgoutput consumer

Airbyte / Fivetran / etc

reads the slot directly

Mixing Providers

The EF Core and Marten providers can run side by side in one Wallaby instance, sharing a single replication slot - see the providers overview.

Deployment

It's highly recommended to deploy Wallaby as a separate service, not as an integrated part of your main application. This allows you to scale CDC operations independently as the need arises.

Next steps

• How it works - the capture pipeline end to end.
• Configuration - All configuration options
• Transforms - shaping and enriching documents.
• Backfill - initial snapshots and version-triggered reindex.
• Observability - OpenTelemetry metrics and traces.