The curriculum lives in a private repo for now; the notes will move here as each phase is reviewed.
PostgreSQL internals course
Eight-week, internals-first course with weekly assignments, lab experiments on a local Postgres 18 container, and notes written in my own words.
Overall progress10%
Done means: Explain planner, storage, MVCC and WAL behaviour from first principles, and ship one improvement to a real project per phase.
- Started
- 26 Sept 2026
- Updated
- 27 Oct 2026
- Milestones
- 0 / 9
- Repository
- Repository
Milestones
- Phase 0 · Lab setup and system catalogsPending
- Phase 1 · Architecture and the life of a queryPending
- Phase 2 · Storage: pages, tuples, TOASTPending
- Phase 3 · MVCC and locksPending
- Phase 4 · IndexesPending
- Phase 5 · The plannerPending
- Phase 6 · WAL, memory and durabilityPending
- Phase 7 · FeaturesPending
- Phase 8 · Observability and operationsPending
Log
Phase 0 assignment written; lab container running. Working through catalogs and the first set of experiments.
Started. Self-rated about 10%. Decided on an internals-first order and a local Docker lab instead of any shared cluster.