Go SQL Query Builder Without Dependencies: Relica, the ozzo-dbx Successor — What Broke on PostgreSQL and SQLite

Relica is a zero-dependency SQL query builder for Go (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite), the successor to ozzo-dbx. I wrote it from scratch, keeping the API design of ozzo-dbx — the query builder by Qiang Xue, creator of Yii framework. Qiang hadn't maintained it for years, and when he handed me the go-ozzo organization in mid-2026, Relica was already in production. We run Relica in production across multiple services on PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite, and an external code auditor recently found six critical bugs in one session. This article is about those bugs, how they got there, and the patterns that