Datasette 1.0a30 adds a slash Jump To menu and plugin hook
Datasette 1.0a30 introduced a slash-triggered Jump To menu plus a hook for plugin-supplied search items. Simon Willison used it in datasette-agent 0.1a4 to start agent chats from the same menu, so plugin authors can wire in their own actions.
TL;DR
- Datasette 1.0a30 adds a new "Jump to..." menu that opens with the
/shortcut and lets users search across databases, tables, and canned queries, according to simonw's feature demo and Simon Willison's 1.0a30 release note. - The new menu is explicitly extensible: simonw's post says plugins can add content, while the official Datasette blog post is the canonical writeup.
- Datasette 1.0a30 also adds a
jump_items_sql()hook that lets plugins contribute searchable items, per the 1.0a30 release note. - Simon Willison used the new JavaScript hook in datasette-agent 0.1a4, where simonw's agent demo shows a "Start a new agent chat" form inside the same menu, and the datasette-agent release note ties it to
makeJumpSections().
You can read the official jump-menu writeup, skim the 1.0a30 release note, and then jump straight to the datasette-agent follow-up. The interesting bit is not just the slash palette itself, but that the same surface now doubles as a plugin entry point, with simonw's demo turning an empty-state search box into an agent launcher.
Jump to menu
Datasette's new menu is a command-palette style navigator. Hitting / opens a searchable overlay for databases, tables, and canned queries, which is a much faster path than clicking around a large instance.
The official writeup is the Datasette blog post, and Simon Willison's release note at simonwillison.net places it as the headline feature of 1.0a30.
Plugin hooks
datasette 1.0a30
Release: datasette 1.0a30 The big new feature in this alpha is a new customizable "Jump to..." menu, described in detail in The extensible "Jump to" menu in Datasette 1.0a30 on the Datasette blog. You can try it out by hitting / on latest.datasette.io - it looks like this: The new jump_items_sql() plugin hook allows plugins to add their own items to the set that's searched by the plugin. Tags: projects, datasette, annotated-release-notes
The extensibility story splits across two hooks:
jump_items_sql(), which the 1.0a30 release note says lets plugins add items to the searchable set.makeJumpSections(), which the datasette-agent release note says powers custom sections in the menu UI.
That gives plugin authors two different insertion points, data in the search index and interface in the menu itself, instead of a single all-purpose extension hook.
datasette-agent
datasette-agent 0.1a4
Release: datasette-agent 0.1a4 Taking advantage of the new makeJumpSections() JavaScript plugin hook added in Datasette 1.0a30, datasette-agent now presents this "Start a new agent chat" interface as part of the Jump to menu, any time you hit /: You can try this out by signing into agent.datasette.io using your GitHub account. Tags: datasette, datasette-agent
Datasette-agent 0.1a4 is the first concrete example. Instead of only returning extra search results, it uses the menu's empty state to present a "Start a new agent chat" form.
Willison's post links to agent.datasette.io, where the feature is live for users who sign in with GitHub. That makes the new jump surface feel less like navigation chrome and more like a general action launcher for Datasette plugins.