Last updated: 2026-07-02

SQL Snippets

SQL snippets in Jam SQL Studio are reusable code templates you trigger from the query editor: type a keyword such as select or insert, pick the snippet from IntelliSense, press Tab, and a full statement expands with placeholders you tab through. The built-in snippets are engine-aware — the same snippet inserts SELECT TOP on SQL Server, LIMIT on PostgreSQL, and FETCH FIRST on Oracle — and you can add your own per engine.

What are SQL snippets?

A SQL snippet is a named template that expands into a full statement inside the Query Editor. Instead of retyping the skeleton of a SELECT … WHERE … ORDER BY, a paginated query, or a stored-procedure definition, you type a keyword, choose the snippet from the completion list, and fill in the highlighted placeholders. Jam SQL Studio draws snippet suggestions from two sources and merges them into the same Monaco completion dropdown alongside schema and keyword completions:

• Built-in snippets — shipped with the app and tailored to the connected engine.
• Custom snippets — your own templates, configured per engine in Settings.

If a custom snippet uses the same label as a built-in one, the custom snippet wins.

Using Built-in Snippets

Built-in snippets are matched by the words you type (not a fixed abbreviation), so typing select where surfaces the SELECT … WHERE … ORDER BY … template and typing upsert or merge surfaces the engine's upsert snippet.

Triggering a Snippet

1. Place the cursor at the start of a statement in the query editor
2. Type a keyword that matches a snippet (for example insert, cte, or update)
3. The snippet appears in the IntelliSense dropdown labeled with its full form (e.g. INSERT INTO … VALUES …)
4. Press Tab or Enter to expand it
5. Fill in the first placeholder, then press Tab to move to the next

When Snippets Appear (Noise Control)

Snippets are deliberately gated so they don't crowd out normal IntelliSense while you're writing table and column names:

• They are offered only when the cursor is at the start of a statement (an empty statement or the first token being typed).
• On automatic completion triggers, snippets appear after you've typed at least 2 characters.
• On a manual completion trigger (invoke IntelliSense with Ctrl+Space), snippets can show immediately at statement start.
• They are suppressed after object-name trigger characters like ., [, and ", where you almost certainly want a schema or column name instead.

Working with Placeholders

After a snippet expands, use these keys to navigate the tab stops:

• Tab - Move to the next placeholder
• Shift+Tab - Move to the previous placeholder
• Escape - Exit snippet mode and place the cursor at the end

Placeholders that share the same number (for example both instances of ${1:cte} in a CTE snippet) update together as you type, so naming a common table expression once renames every reference to it.

Engine-Aware Snippets

This is where Jam SQL Studio's snippets differ from a generic editor snippet pack: the built-in library adapts each template to the connected engine's dialect. You don't keep separate "SQL Server SELECT" and "Postgres SELECT" snippets — you type one keyword and get the right syntax for the database in front of you.

Oracle connections also get a PL/SQL-flavoured set on top of the shared library — a hierarchical CONNECT BY query, V$SESSION and USER_OBJECTS lookups, ALTER SESSION SET …, DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE, and DBMS_METADATA.GET_DDL. When the query editor runs against the mock engine used in tests, the SQL Server snippet set is used.

Built-in Snippet Library

The library is intentionally practical-first — the statements you write every day. Snippets are labeled by their full form; the keywords below are what you type to surface them.

Query (SELECT) snippets

Write (INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE) snippets

DDL and utility snippets

The DDL set covers CREATE SCHEMA, CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE (with an IF NOT EXISTS variant), CREATE INDEX / CREATE UNIQUE INDEX, CREATE SEQUENCE, view / procedure / function / trigger definitions, the common ALTER TABLE … ADD/DROP/ALTER COLUMN and ADD CONSTRAINT forms, and DROP … IF EXISTS for tables, views, indexes, procedures, and functions. Utility snippets include a transaction skeleton (BEGIN/COMMIT with error handling on SQL Server and Oracle), an execution-plan snippet, and a comment header.

Creating Custom Snippets

Define your own snippets for the patterns your team reuses — audited inserts, a standard soft-delete, a house pagination style, or a boilerplate procedure header.

Add a New Snippet

1. Open Settings (Cmd+, / Ctrl+,)
2. Go to Advanced → SQL Snippets
3. Choose the Engine the snippet applies to (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL, or Oracle)
4. Click Add snippet
5. Fill in the fields below and click Save

Placeholder Syntax

Snippet bodies use standard Monaco snippet syntax:

Reusing the same number (for example ${1:table} twice) links the placeholders so they update together.

Example Custom Snippet

A snippet for audited INSERT statements (engine set to SQL Server):

-- Prefix: insa
-- Label: INSERT with audit columns

INSERT INTO ${1:table_name} (
    ${2:columns},
    CreatedBy,
    CreatedAt
)
VALUES (
    ${3:values},
    CURRENT_USER,
    GETDATE()
)$0

When expanded, the cursor highlights table_name, then Tab moves to columns, then to values, and finally exits at $0.

Managing Snippets

Edit and delete

In Settings → Advanced → SQL Snippets, pick the engine to see its custom snippets. Click the pencil icon to edit a snippet's prefix, label, description, or body, or the trash icon to delete it (a confirmation dialog appears first).

Clear all snippets for an engine

The Clear [engine] snippets button removes every custom snippet for the selected engine at once, after a confirmation. Built-in snippets are always available and can't be deleted. Custom snippets are stored locally on your machine, so they persist across restarts but aren't synced between computers.

Jam SQL Studio snippets vs generic editor snippets

Editors like VS Code and SSMS support snippets too, but they're dialect-blind — a snippet that inserts SELECT TOP is wrong the moment you open a PostgreSQL connection. Two things make Jam SQL Studio's snippets different:

• One keyword, correct dialect. The built-in library resolves the right syntax for the connected engine, so a single pagination or upsert snippet works across SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, and SQLite.
• Merged into real IntelliSense. Snippets appear in the same completion list as your live schema — tables, columns, and keyword completions — instead of a separate insert-snippet command, and they're gated to the start of a statement so they never fight column-name completion.

Frequently asked questions