Use it. Forget it.

An ephemeral database is the same Postgres every CapyDB project runs on: its own cell, its own credentials, TLS on every connection, a pooled and a direct connection string. Nothing is mocked and nothing is shared.

What is different is the lifetime. It costs nothing, asks for no account, and 72 hours after it is created it is destroyed along with everything in it.

The CLI creates one without logging in, waits for it, and writes DATABASE_URL into your env file - the same way it does for a project. Your app connects on its next start.

$ capydb ephemeral create
Created ephemeral database ephemeral-7f3a91c2; waiting for it to come up
Ephemeral database ephemeral-7f3a91c2 is ready
Env file updated: .env.local

$ capydb ephemeral claim      # keep it: becomes a normal project

# or, with nothing installed:
$ curl -X POST https://capydb.dev/api/capydb/v1/ephemeral-databases

The CapyDB MCP server exposes this as a tool that needs no login, so an assistant can give your project a working database the moment it needs one, instead of stopping to ask you to sign up.

If the work turns out to be worth keeping, the agent hands you the claim link. That is the one step that needs you.

There is nothing to clean up. When the time runs out, the database, its data and its credentials are deleted - not paused, not archived.

• -Sized like the smallest plan: 2 GB of storage and 15 connections
• -Pauses when idle and resumes on the next connection, like any CapyDB database
• -No backups and no point-in-time restore until it is claimed

Claiming moves the database into your workspace as an ordinary project. The data and the connection strings do not change, so the app you pointed at it keeps running - no export, no import, no cutover.

From that moment it stops expiring, gains nightly backups, and runs on your plan. A plan is required to claim; every plan starts with a month free.

Anything you cannot afford to lose. An unclaimed ephemeral database has one key - the claim token this page or the CLI keeps for you - and CapyDB stores only its hash. Lose it and the database cannot be recovered or claimed; it just expires.

• -The number of unclaimed databases is capped across the platform, so at busy times you may be asked to try again later
• -Creation is rate limited per visitor