Athena (parlel emulator)

A zero-dependency, in-process fake of Amazon Athena. Ships a trivial query engine that resolves SELECT <literal> queries.

Property	Value
Port	4723
Protocol	AWS JSON 1.1 (`X-Amz-Target: AmazonAthena.<Op>`)
Healthcheck	`GET /_parlel/health`
Reset	`POST /_parlel/reset`

Default connection

AWS_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_ENDPOINT_URL=http://127.0.0.1:4723
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=parlel
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=parlel

Supported operations

Queries: StartQueryExecution, GetQueryExecution, GetQueryResults, StopQueryExecution, ListQueryExecutions
Work groups: CreateWorkGroup, ListWorkGroups, GetWorkGroup
Named queries: CreateNamedQuery, ListNamedQueries, GetNamedQuery

StartQueryExecution returns a QueryExecutionId; GetQueryExecution reports SUCCEEDED; GetQueryResults returns a ResultSet with a header row plus data rows (trivial SELECT 1 / SELECT '<literal>' are evaluated).

SDK example

import {
  AthenaClient,
  StartQueryExecutionCommand,
  GetQueryResultsCommand,
} from "@aws-sdk/client-athena";

const athena = new AthenaClient({
  region: "us-east-1",
  endpoint: "http://127.0.0.1:4723",
  credentials: { accessKeyId: "parlel", secretAccessKey: "parlel" },
});

const { QueryExecutionId } = await athena.send(
  new StartQueryExecutionCommand({ QueryString: "SELECT 1" }),
);
const results = await athena.send(new GetQueryResultsCommand({ QueryExecutionId }));

Access via MCP / preview URL

Reachable through the parlel pool MCP bridge and preview URL. No auth setup required.

Surface coverage

This emulator faithfully replicates the API surface most application code and agents exercise. Anything below the supported lines is either an intentional design choice for a fast, zero-cost local emulator (✓ By design) or a candidate for a future release (⟳ Roadmap) — never a silent inaccuracy.

Legend: ✅ fully supported · ◐ accepted (stored, not strictly enforced) · ✓ by design · ⟳ on the roadmap.

Area	Limitation
Query engine	Only `SELECT <literal>` truly evaluates; `FROM` returns demo rows.
State	Queries always `SUCCEEDED` immediately.
S3 output	`OutputLocation` is recorded but no S3 objects are written.
Catalogs	Glue catalog integration is not wired.

Configuration — `test.env`

Copy these into your test.env (used by the bridge sidecar flow). Tokens are Parlel's seeded test credentials — any non-empty value is accepted by the emulator, so you rarely need to change them. Swap in real credentials only when pointing at the live service in prod.env.

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=parlel
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=parlel
AWS_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_ENDPOINT_URL=http://parlel-bridge:4723