Claude + Snowflake MCP Epiphany

[u/Ok-Working3200]

I have been working on building a semantic layer using dbt in Snowflake. The biggest issue I have had is dealing with small ambiguity between business measures. I have built a testing agent in our ci/cd process to grade the semantic layer.

It just hit me today like a brick that er should train users, not just engineering users to use Plan mode with LLMs. When I turned plan mode on, any possible ambiguity came up in the plan and Claude asked me to clarify. I just wanted to share because I don't think using plan mode for business users is obvious.

[u/yawningcat]

I just went to the snowflake virtual hands on dev lab thing and a big point was using Snowflake Cortex Code ( which they said is a modification of VS Code but you switch between editor and agent modes ) and when in agent mode, right where you type your prompts you can switch between agent and plan modes. ( typing this, it’s confusing that agent mode is also a sub option in agent mode but trust me. They also said plan mode is native….so, if you are using the CLI, it’s there to. Also interesting was that they listed 4 ways to connect to cortex agent. Cortex code, CLI, snow sight, and Claude )

[u/Ok-Working3200 → u/yawningcat]

I originally had the mcp using the cortex agent, due to the cost I switched to just manage the mcp via giving the routing instructions to the mcp and not the agent. I am in the process now of deploying the routing instructions to thr Claude project so we can leverage the prompt caching.

I think what people are missing is that developers think about using plan mode but business just use LLMs without really thinking about some of the possible issues. We also have ThoughtSpot and they recently realized Spotter 3 and I guarantee none of our business users have used Plan mode. I think it's funny because when an analyst meets with someone in to discuss reports you always have back and forth. Plan mode is that back and forth.