What Is Kent (and what it is not)

Kent is a command-line tool for working with a Cordelia-format .sqlite database. Use it if you'd rather stay at a terminal than open Cordelia's window, or if you need to check a database from a script, over SSH, or on a machine with no desktop at all.

The same database, a different way in

Kent and Cordelia read and write the same files. A database Kent creates opens in Cordelia; Kent can report on one Cordelia filled. No separate format, no conversion, no second copy to keep in sync. Kent uses Cordelia's own database layer rather than reimplementing the schema.

What Kent does

Ten commands, one page each. Only createdb and restore write to a database, and neither overwrites one that already exists. The rest never modify the database they open.

createdb creates an empty database.
info reports what a database contains.
details reports the same in full, empty tables included.
files lists the .FIT files imported into it.
activities lists what a database recorded, one row per session.
sports lists the sport combinations it holds.
verify checks its structure against the current schema.
sqldump exports it as a .sql script that replays.
archive writes a zip of NDJSON.
restore rebuilds one from an archive.

What Kent is not

It is not a replacement for Cordelia. Kent doesn't import .FIT files, show or edit your activities, or export to XLSX, JSON, CSV or FIT. Garmin's file format is Cordelia's job; see What Is Cordelia.
It is not a database browser. Kent's reports give counts and structure, never the rows on screen. sqldump and archive hand the rows to another program, but nothing in Kent displays or searches them. To read your data with a general-purpose tool, see Viewing the Imported Data.
It is not a migration tool. A database from an older Cordelia is refused, not upgraded; the info command shows what that looks like. sqldump and archive can read one out, which is what you'd do before migrating it, but neither performs the migration.
It does not go online. Kent contains no networking code at all. See the Privacy Policy.

Third-party components

Kent uses three components from outside Venhola Consulting Inc., all built into the program:

SQLite is the database engine that reads and writes Cordelia databases.
zlib-ng and minizip-ng write and read .kent archives, which are zip files underneath.

SQLite is in the public domain, and zlib-ng and minizip-ng are under the zlib license. That is the whole list. Kent has no window, so it uses neither GTK nor libadwaita, and it reads databases rather than .FIT files, so it does not include the Garmin FIT SDK that Cordelia does. kent --version prints the version of each one; see Getting Help and Version Information.

Free, without advertising

Kent is free to use, with no advertising, on the same terms as Cordelia. See the License. "Free" describes the price, not the source code: Kent is proprietary software and its repository is private.

The program is English; its help is not

Everything Kent prints is in English: usage listing, reports, error messages, man page. That is deliberate, not a gap waiting to be filled.

Its help pages are another matter. They are translated into the same six languages Cordelia's are, because Kent is now its own download and a reader in any of them may need it. Where a page quotes what Kent prints, that text stays English in every copy, because it is what you will see on your screen.

Getting it

Kent has its own signed Linux x64 download, separate from Cordelia's packages, with its own version, checksum and signature. Use the Kent release that matches your Cordelia. See Getting Kent and the Product Roadmap.