Andrei Lepikhov: EXPLAIN Prettier, or Post-Processing Query Plans in Postgres
The article discusses the challenges of interpreting the EXPLAIN command output in PostgreSQL. It highlights the excessive detail in the output that complicates the analysis of query plans. The author proposes a post-processing approach to enhance readability and focus on relevant information.
- ▪The EXPLAIN command in PostgreSQL is used to analyze query performance but often provides too much information.
- ▪Changes in EXPLAIN output between PostgreSQL versions can lead to instability in regression tests.
- ▪The author suggests that a post-processing method could help filter unnecessary details from EXPLAIN output.
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Story provenance
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Record
| Original publisher | Postgr |
| Canonical URL | https://postgr.es/p/9kj |
| Publication time | Tue, 26 May 2026 11:22:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-26T11:37:48.652Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-26T11:37:51.954Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | ZEbYxFmEiE6b |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
This story started with a book gifted by a colleague. Reading Jimmy Angelakos' «PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid Them», I realised something that had been bugging me - in Postgres, the EXPLAIN command produces far too much information. The examples that authors typically present when discussing various aspects of database systems make it harder to analyse the problem at hand and distract the reader. That's how the idea of a post-processing for EXPLAIN output was born - to make query plans more readable and problem-focused.Information OverloadAnyone who has worked with PostgreSQL knows the EXPLAIN command, or more precisely EXPLAIN ANALYZE. It is typically used to investigate query performance issues or demonstrate optimisation techniques.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Postgr.
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