Auto prompt SQL: a resource-efficient architecture for text-to-SQL translation in constrained environments

Using the best Text-to-SQL methods in resource-constrained environments is challenging due to their reliance on resource-intensive open-source models. This paper introduces Auto Prompt SQL (AP-SQL), a novel architecture designed to bridge the gap between resource-efficient small open-source models and the powerful capabilities of large closed-source models for Text-to-SQL translation. Our method decomposes the task into schema filtering, retrieval-augmented text-to-SQL generation based on in-context examples, and prompt-driven schema linking and SQL generation. To improve schema selection accuracy, we fine-tune large language models. Crucially, we also explore the impact of prompt engineering throughout the process, leveraging Chain-of-Thought (CoT) and Graph-of-Thought (GoT) templates to significantly enhance the model's reasoning for accurate SQL generation. Comprehensive evaluations on the Spider benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of AP-SQL.