13 March, 2026

This is a big release. We're introducing automatic seed data generation, a native MCP server for AI assistant integration, and improvements to @searchable query performance.

Seed Data Generation

Keel now includes a complete seed data generation system that produces realistic, deterministic test data from a simple YAML configuration. This makes it easy to populate your local database with meaningful data for development and testing.

Getting Started

Initialize your seed config by running keel seed init. The system analyzes your schema and infers appropriate generators for each field:

keel seed init

This creates a seed/config.yaml file:

seed: 1741234567
 
models:
  Customer:
    count: 10
    fields:
      name: fullName
      email: email
 
  Order:
    count: [10, 20]
    fields:
      reference: slug
      total: price
    with:
      items:
        count: [1, 5]

Generate SQL from your config:

keel seed generate

Apply the seed data (resets database, runs migrations, and seeds):

keel seed

Generator Inference

The inference engine uses field names, model context, and types to select generators automatically. For example, customerEmail maps to email, User.name maps to fullName, and Product.name maps to productName. Low-confidence inferences are flagged with comments for manual review.

Over 50 built-in generators are available covering names, contact details, locations, business data, text, dates, numbers, and more.

Key Features

• Deterministic output - Same seed and config always produces identical data
• Nested relationships - Use with clauses to generate parent and child records together
• Scenarios - Organize seed data into subdirectories (e.g. seed/demo/, seed/staging/) with the --scenario flag
• Config sync - Re-running keel seed init detects schema changes without losing your customizations

Learn more about seeding data.

MCP Server

Keel now exposes a native Model Context Protocol (opens in a new tab) (MCP) server, allowing AI assistants like Claude Desktop and Cursor to discover and interact with your Keel APIs.

The MCP endpoint is available at /{apiName}/mcp and exposes your actions as MCP tools. Connect it from Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-keel-app": {
      "url": "https://my-app.keelapps.xyz/web/mcp"
    }
  }
}

The MCP server supports full OAuth 2.0 authentication with PKCE, dynamic client registration, and server metadata discovery. MCP clients automatically discover auth endpoints and walk users through authentication.

Learn more about authentication endpoints.

Improved @searchable Performance

Fields marked with @searchable now use per-field indexing for search queries, improving query performance on models with multiple searchable fields. See searchable fields for more details.

Fixes and Improvements

For a full list of fixes and improvements, check out our GitHub releases page (opens in a new tab).

For any issues or feedback, please contact us at help@keel.so.

Thank you for using Keel!