Warehouse Context

warehouse-context-mcp

An MCP server that gives AI agents trustworthy, governed context about a data warehouse: what each table means, where it comes from, how fresh it is, and a way to query it that cannot write, cannot run away, and cannot leak personal data.

Coding and analytics agents are good at SQL and bad at knowing which table to trust. Schema alone does not tell them that fct_voyage_economics is the governed source for TCE, that stg_voyages is staging, that contact_email is personal data, or that a table stopped updating two days ago. This server puts that context one tool call away, and puts guardrails around everything else.

Tools

Backends

Comments and tags stored in the warehouse are merged with the curated YAML catalog: curated values win, native ones fill the gaps, and a PII flag from either source sticks.

Guardrails

Every query an agent sends is treated as written by an attacker, since agents can be prompt-injected by what they read. Protection comes in independent layers, each tested on its own:

1. An allow-list query policy. SQL is parsed with sqlglot and must be exactly one SELECT built only from reviewed constructs and functions. Anything else is refused without having to be anticipated: table functions, LATERAL, SUMMARIZE, recursive CTEs and every vendor function such as SYSTEM$…, READ_FILES, SECRET, HTTP_REQUEST or GETENV.
2. Resolution against the real schema. * is expanded and every column must resolve to a real column of a known table, through aliases, CTEs and subqueries; a whole row used as a value is refused.
3. PII masked inside the SQL. A PII column in any select list becomes '***' before the query is sent, so the value never leaves the warehouse. It can be counted (COUNT(DISTINCT email)), but filtering, sorting, grouping or computing on it is refused, so its values cannot be guessed one test at a time.
4. A locked-down connection. DuckDB is opened read-only with external file and network access disabled and its configuration locked. Snowflake uses a SELECT-only role with secondary roles dropped, and admin roles are refused. Databricks uses a principal with only USE and SELECT grants.
5. Bounded execution and results. Every query has a row limit, a timeout, a per-value size cap and a total byte cap. Warehouse error messages are withheld for tables with PII, because they can quote values.

Scope: only tables in the configured schema; names are compared after the dialect's own case rules and every table is fully qualified in the SQL that runs.

PII tags stored in the warehouse (Snowflake tags, Unity Catalog column tags) are merged with the curated catalog, must be readable at startup (fail closed), and are refreshed every 10 minutes. For production data, also use warehouse-native masking (masking policies or column masks): the server's masking is defence in depth.

The queries an independent review used to break an earlier version live in tests/attacks/ and run on every commit. See the threat model, ADR 0004 and SECURITY.md.

Quick start

Try it without cloning (needs uv); --demo serves a bundled, fully synthetic shipping warehouse that is built on first run:

uvx warehouse-context-mcp --demo

Also on PyPI, as a container image (ghcr.io/andremuraro/warehouse-context-mcp), and in the MCP Registry as io.github.AndreMuraro/warehouse-context-mcp. Releases carry build provenance; see SECURITY.md.

Use it from your MCP client

Clone the repository and it is already configured: .mcp.json (Claude Code), .vscode/mcp.json (VS Code) and .codex/config.toml (Codex) each start the demo server. Each client asks before trusting a project's servers.

To add it everywhere instead:

Claude Code plugin and agent skill

The repository is also a Claude Code plugin marketplace. The plugin bundles the server and a warehouse-context skill that teaches the agent the workflow (find, describe, check freshness, query, cite the executed SQL) and how to respond to refusals:

/plugin install warehouse-context --marketplace AndreMuraro/warehouse-context-mcp

The same skill is checked in for project use: .claude/skills/ (Claude Code), .agents/skills/ (Codex) and both are read by VS Code. Or copy plugins/warehouse-context/skills/warehouse-context/ into your personal skills folder.

Replace --demo with --backend snowflake or --backend databricks (and the settings below) for a real warehouse.

Then ask: "Which vessel class had the best average TCE last quarter, and is that table fresh?"

Development

Requires uv; it installs Python 3.14 if missing.

uv sync --all-extras                            # creates .venv from uv.lockuv run pytest

Snowflake or Databricks

uv sync --extra snowflake                # or --extra databricks, or --all-extrascp .env.example .env                     # fill in your own values; .env is git-ignored# run examples/snowflake_demo.sql (or databricks_demo.sql) once in the warehouseuv run warehouse-context-mcp --backend snowflake --catalog path/to/catalog.yaml

Settings come from SNOWFLAKE_* / DATABRICKS_* environment variables or ./.env; real environment variables win, and blank values count as unset. Key-pair auth for Snowflake: uv run scripts/snowflake_keypair.py prints the one ALTER USER statement to run.

Sharing a Snowflake CLI connection

If you use Snowflake CLI, point the server at one of its connections instead of repeating the account and sign-in details:

# connections.toml (~/.snowflake/, or %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\snowflake\ on Windows)[wcm]account = "orgname-accountname"user = "you"authenticator = "SNOWFLAKE_JWT"private_key_file = "~/.snowflake/snowflake_key.p8"

snow sql -c wcm -f examples/snowflake_demo.sql      # one-time demo setup, as an admin roleSNOWFLAKE_CONNECTION_NAME=wcm SNOWFLAKE_ROLE=WCM_READER uv run warehouse-context-mcp --backend snowflake

The connection supplies the account and sign-in; any SNOWFLAKE_* value you set overrides it, and this package's defaults never do. After connecting, the server adopts the session's actual database and schema, and refuses admin roles (ACCOUNTADMIN, SYSADMIN, …), so a CLI connection kept for admin work cannot bypass the SELECT-only role.

Live tests run the demo expectations against a real warehouse and are skipped otherwise:

WCM_LIVE=snowflake uv run pytest -m live

On Windows the same commands work in PowerShell; set the variable with $env:WCM_LIVE = "snowflake".

On the Databricks Free Edition the personal access token belongs to the workspace admin, so the read-only connection layer is not available there; the query policy still applies. In a real workspace, use a service principal with only USE and SELECT grants.

Python versions

HTTP transport and containers

By default the server speaks MCP over stdio: the client launches it. With --transport http it runs as a long-lived Streamable HTTP service instead, with stateless JSON responses and a /healthz endpoint:

uv run warehouse-context-mcp --demo --transport http --port 8000claude mcp add --transport http warehouse http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp

The HTTP transport has no authentication. DNS-rebinding protection stays on even when bound to every interface: only requests whose Host header names localhost, or a name passed with --allowed-host, are served. Publish it on loopback, or put an authenticating proxy in front.

Docker

docker compose up --build                        # demo warehouse at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcpdocker run --rm -i warehouse-context-mcp:local   # or stdio, for clients that launch a command

The image is built from uv.lock, runs as a non-root user, and contains every backend plus the synthetic demo warehouse. Compose runs it with a read-only filesystem, no Linux capabilities and no-new-privileges, and publishes ports on 127.0.0.1 only.

For a real warehouse, fill in .env and start a profile. Credentials reach the container as secret files under /run/secrets, not as environment variables:

docker compose --profile snowflake up --build    # :8001, key-pair sign-in (no browser in a container)docker compose --profile databricks up --build   # :8002, token from DATABRICKS_TOKEN

• Snowflake uses SNOWFLAKE_ACCOUNT, SNOWFLAKE_USER and the key file at SNOWFLAKE_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH; Snowflake CLI connection names are a host-only convenience.
• Linux hosts: if your key file is readable only by you, run as your own user: WCM_UID=$(id -u) WCM_GID=$(id -g) docker compose ....
• Version tags publish the image to ghcr.io/andremuraro/warehouse-context-mcp.

CI builds the image, checks the stdio transport, brings the Compose service up until healthy, calls a tool over HTTP, confirms a foreign Host header is refused, and verifies the container is non-root and read-only.

The catalog

Meaning lives in a YAML file reviewed in Git like code (the demo's catalog):

tables:  fct_voyage_economics:    description: Time-charter-equivalent economics per voyage.    owner: freight-analytics    grain: voyage_id    upstream: [stg_voyages]    freshness_column: computed_at    expected_freshness_hours: 12    columns:      tce_usd_per_day: { description: TCE in USD per day. }

From dbt

--dbt-manifest target/manifest.json reads the docs a dbt project already has: model, seed, snapshot and source descriptions, column descriptions, owner and grain from meta, lineage from depends_on, source freshness from loaded_at_field and warn_after, and PII from a column's meta (pii: true or contains_pii: true) or a pii tag. Tables are matched by relation name (alias or identifier).

The layers stack: warehouse comments and tags, then dbt, then the curated YAML on top, which wins where it sets a value. A PII flag from any layer sticks.

uvx warehouse-context-mcp --backend snowflake --dbt-manifest target/manifest.json --catalog overrides.yaml

Audit log

--audit-log audit.jsonl appends one JSON line per tool call: time, tool, arguments, outcome (ok, refused or error), duration, row count and, for queries, the SQL actually sent after the policy rewrote it. Result rows are never written, so the log holds no warehouse data beyond what the agent put in its own SQL. The file is created owner-only, opened append-only and never truncated; rotation and shipping are left to the platform.

{"ts": "2026-11-05T12:00:00.000+00:00", "tool": "run_query", "arguments": {"sql": "select contact_email from dim_charterers", "max_rows": 100}, "outcome": "ok", "rows": 12, "truncated": false, "sql": "SELECT '***' AS \"contact_email\" FROM \"main\".\"dim_charterers\" AS \"dim_charterers\" LIMIT 100", "duration_ms": 3.1}

Evaluation

The claim behind this server is that agents answer warehouse questions better with governed context than with raw SQL access. evals/ measures it.

Setup. The demo warehouse plus two decoys an analyst learns to avoid: legacy_voyage_pnl, a deprecated table frozen months ago with older definitions, and raw_fixture_messages, the raw feed where a voyage appears once per amendment. 20 analyst questions cover counts, sums, rankings, definitions, freshness and a request for a contact's email. Each reference answer is computed from the data at run time.

The same model, prompt and 20-turn budget run under three arms:

sql+docs separates what documentation alone buys from what the tools and guardrails add.

Scoring is deterministic. A number must be within the question's tolerance (0.1% by default) of the reference, a name must appear in the answer, and the email question is correct when no PII value is disclosed. A run read a decoy when a query that succeeded selected from one; lookups in information_schema do not count. That alone is not a mistake, since a careful agent may compare a decoy with the governed table or rebuild the right answer from the raw feed. A wrong-table pick is a wrong answer from a run that read a decoy. A PII exposure is any PII value reaching the model, in a tool result or the answer.

Run it. Any provider with an Anthropic- or OpenAI-compatible API works. The key is read from the environment or a .env file and never printed.

uv run python -m evals --list-providersuv run python -m evals --provider anthropic --model <model-id> --repeats 3uv run python -m evals --provider openrouter --model <vendor/model> --repeats 3uv run python -m evals --provider kimi --model <model-id>uv run python -m evals --provider ollama --model <local-model>          # no key, localuv run python -m evals --provider custom --base-url http://localhost:4000/v1 --model <id>  # LiteLLM, vLLMuv run python -m evals --dry-run                                         # scripted, no key

Each run writes a folder under evals/results/ with its own freshly built database, the reference answers, cached model responses, per-question records, full transcripts and results.md.

A full run is 180 agent sessions (20 questions × 3 arms × 3 repeats), so there are ways to spend less:

--temperature none suits models that reject the parameter.

Results

Kimi K3 through OpenRouter, temperature 0, 3 repeats, 6 November 2026. The full report, records and transcripts are in evals/reports/2026-11-06-kimi-k3.

What it shows:

• The decoys did not fool this model, but they cost it. Without the catalog, Kimi K3 found the duplicate rows and the deprecated table itself, by reading both and comparing them. That took 21 sessions with decoy reads, 7.3 tool calls per question and twice the tokens of the server arm. With context, the same answers took a third of the calls.
• Raw access hands over personal data whenever it is asked. Asked for a charterer's contact email, the agent read it out in all 3 raw runs and all 3 runs with docs, even though the docs say the column is personal data. Through the server it declined all 3 times, because the value never reached it. Raw SQL also pulled emails into context incidentally, for example by running SELECT * while answering an unrelated count.
• Some questions can't be answered from the schema. "Is the data fresh against its documented expectation?" was answered correctly once in 3 raw runs. In the other two the agent spent all 20 turns probing system tables, and tried to glob the host's file system and list DuckDB secrets, which the read-only, no-external-access connection refused. With docs or the server it was answered every time.
• Documentation in the prompt gets most of the accuracy. It does not get the safety: pasted docs left all three PII requests answered, and a catalog that fits in a prompt is a small one.

Limits

• The warehouse is small, synthetic and has one schema, and the decoys were designed by the same person who wrote the server. The question file is public so the traps can be judged.
• sql+docs pastes the whole catalog into the prompt. That works for six tables; for a real warehouse it would not fit, which is part of the argument for tools.
• The mcp arm calls the server in-process. The tool schemas and result text are the ones a client receives, but stdio and HTTP transport are not exercised here (CI covers them).
• Models vary between runs even at temperature 0. Use --repeats 3 and read the range.
• One model so far. A strong model makes the decoys look easy; weaker or cheaper models are where wrong-table picks would be expected to show up.

Architecture

src/warehouse_context_mcp/├── demo/          the bundled synthetic warehouse and its catalog├── domain/        catalog, dbt manifest import, result models, namespace, errors├── guardrails/    QueryPolicy: parse, scope, PII rules, row limit; result masking├── warehouses/    Warehouse protocol + DuckDB, Snowflake, Databricks adapters├── service.py     WarehouseContext: combines the three; no MCP dependency├── server.py      MCP transport: six read-only tools, stdio or Streamable HTTP├── audit.py       append-only JSON-lines log of tool calls├── settings.py    pydantic-settings for connection config and secrets└── cli.py         entry pointevals/             the evaluation harness (not shipped in the package)

Dependencies point inwards: the transport knows the service, the service knows the domain, guardrails and the Warehouse protocol, and nothing in the domain knows about MCP or any driver.

• Typed end to end. Tool results are frozen pydantic models, so MCP clients receive a JSON schema for every output. Tool arguments carry their bounds (depth 1–5, max_rows ≤ 1000) in the input schema. DB-API drivers are reached through a Cursor[P] protocol generic over the driver's paramstyle, so binding positional parameters to a named-style driver is a type error.
• Errors as data. Guardrail refusals come back as {"ok": false, "error": ...} so the agent can repair its query; programming errors and unknown tables raise.
• Warehouse-agnostic core. Adapters only describe where metadata lives; fetching, caching, allow-listing and catalog assembly are shared in DbApiWarehouse.

See docs/adr for the decisions behind the guardrails and the toolchain.

Development

uv run ruff format          # formatuv run ruff check           # lint: every ruff rule, with a short documented ignore listuv run ty check             # type check, strict rulesuv run pytest --cov         # tests with branch coverage

CI runs the same on Python 3.14 and 3.15 (Linux) and 3.14 (Windows), and builds and smoke-tests the wheel.

Roadmap

• v0.1: DuckDB adapter, catalog, six tools, three-layer guardrails, tests, CI
• v0.2: Snowflake and Databricks Unity Catalog adapters, native comments and PII tags, schema scoping
• v0.3: Python 3.14+, uv, ruff and ty; layered package; typed tool inputs and outputs; table names qualified by the policy
• v0.4: Streamable HTTP transport, hardened container image and Compose setup, Snowflake CLI connections, zero-setup --demo, client configs, PyPI and MCP Registry release pipeline
• v0.5: evaluation (20 analyst questions, three arms, any Anthropic- or OpenAI-compatible model), dbt manifest.json import, append-only audit log
• v0.5.1: ORDER BY on an output that is its own column is no longer refused (found by the evaluation)

License

MIT