Steampipe uses a Postgres Foreign Data Wrapper to present data from external systems and services as database tables. The Steampipe Foreign Data Wrapper (FDW) provides a Postgres extension that allows Postgres to connect to external data in a standardized way. The Steampipe FDW does not directly interface with external systems, but instead relies on plugins to implement the API/provider specific code and return it in a standard format via gRPC. This approach simplifies extending Steampipe as the Postgres-specific logic is encapsulated in the FDW, and API and service specific code resides only in the plugin.