How to go from “What tables do I have?” to Market Segmentation and a Star Schema - all from chat.
Joe Reis, author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering, known for practical education and his YouTube content — formerly CEO/co-founder of Ternary Data — is reviewing our Keboola MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server with Claude to list Shopify his tables, run exploratory analysis, export data to BigQuery, and generate a star schema.
And you can do the same in minutes! We will go through everything here from one-click setup to best propmts to use MCP with.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a standard that lets AI assistants securely call tools (APIs, DBs, services) on your behalf. Because Keboola is API-first platform it allows your AI agent to build pipeline, browse your tables or create detail documentation on the columns for you.
In Joe’s walkthrough, he connects Claude to Keboola’s MCP server, to immediately access data platform tools (e.g., get_table, get_bucket).
To see all the capabilities of Keboola MCP Server for your day-to-day data work, scroll here.
Joe connects Claude and starts prompting right away. Follow his steps:
Connect to the integration - here is where you authorize your Keboola project.
*You need to be Claude organization owner or primary owner on a Claude Pro or Claude Max plan. If you use Claude Free plan, follow the Claude Desktop instructions linked bellow.
Connecting with different AI? For Cursor, Windsurf, or Make navigate to Your Profile Picture in your Keboola Project→ Project Settings → MCP Server to see all setup steps for each AI tool.
New to Keboola?
Set up your Keboola project for FREE.
Joe’s first move: “Show me all tables I can access.” Claude returns 16 tables with names, row counts, and descriptions - a quick validation that the integration works.
Try this prompt as well:
“List all tables in my Keboola project and include row counts and short descriptions.”
This uses the Storage tools exposed by MCP to browse buckets, tables, and columns (for more details, follow in documentation help.keboola.com).
Next, Joe asks for customer and market segmentation analysis across his Shopify data. Claude orchestrates a series of table queries and SQL steps (you can see the queries as it goes) and returns segments like High-Value, At-Risk, and more - plus useful metrics such as average customer lifetime value, number of orders per customer, and top-performing markets.
Try this prompt:
“Segment customers by RFM over the last 12 months. Return segment definitions, cohort sizes, and top 5 insights, and show the SQL used.”
Joe asks the assistant to run a flow that writes Shopify tables from Keboola into his own BigQuery project. After an initial hiccup with connection (yes, it is fixed 🙏), the flow completes; in BigQuery he sees customers, order_line_items, and products populated.
Try this prompt:
“Create a flow that writes Shopify customers, order lines, and products to my BigQuery dataset <PROJECT>.<DATASET>
. Then run it and link me to the job.”
This leverages MCP Jobs, Flows, and Components. If you’re using BigQuery, remember you can also let Keboola host data in its own BigQuery instance for analytics performance.
Finally, Joe asks Claude to design a star schema with his data. He runs the generated SQL in BigQuery, creating facts and dimensions plus summary views in a few minutes.
Try this prompt:
“Create a star schema from my Shopify tables (customers, order lines, products) in BigQuery.”
If you want to see the full Joe Reis honest review:
New since August:
get_table:
Richer schema details exposed in responses.query_data:
More reliable queries and fewer edits.create_oauth_url
tool: Get an authorization link right inside the chat for OAuth components.Head to your Project Settings → MCP Server, connect your assistant of choice, and paste one of the prompts above. The rest is just a chat.
New to Keboola?
Set up your Keboola project for FREE.