Tony Ojeda 15H AGO

Getting answers from company data usually requires someone who knows SQL, understands the database, and has enough business context to interpret the results. This creates a bottleneck: business users depend on analysts for questions they should be able to explore themselves. I turned Claude Code into a self-service data analyst by giving it direct, read-only database access and configuring its behavior through a `CLAUDE.md` file. The file gives Claude business context, explains which analytical tables contain different types of information, tells it how to investigate questions, and defines how results should be presented. Users can then ask business questions in plain English. Claude determines what data it needs, queries the database, investigates the results, creates visualizations, and explains what it found. Step-by-step: 1. Create a dedicated analysis folder and add a `CLAUDE.md` file that defines how Claude should operate as a data analyst. 2. Give Claude enough business context to understand the company, its terminology, important metrics, and how the business operates. 3. Document which analytical tables or views it should use for different types of questions. Curated analytics tables work particularly well because Claude doesn't need to decipher the entire production database. 4. Give users read-only database permissions and explicitly instruct Claude to perform read-only operations, such as `SELECT` queries only. Never give the agent permission to modify production data. 5. Tell Claude how to use the command line to query the database. Include instructions to help users install or configure it if it isn't available. 6. Define an analytical process for Claude to follow. Rather than simply generating one SQL query, instruct it to investigate the user's question, examine the results, and run additional queries when necessary to understand what is happening. 7. Define the expected output: answer the question, explain the important insights, and create appropriate visualizations to make the findings easy to understand. 8. Open the folder in the Code tab inside the Claude Desktop app, which I find to be the best interface, and ask questions naturally, such as, "Why did revenue decline last month?" Claude handles the investigation from there. Instead of building and maintaining a custom analytics application, you can turn a general-purpose AI coding agent into a capable self-service analyst with access to your existing data warehouse. Users ask questions in plain English while Claude handles the SQL, investigation, visualization, and explanation, giving nontechnical users a more direct way to explore company data.