Skill: Connect to Live Snowflake

Purpose

Run queries against the live Snowflake warehouse — not the local DuckDB practice copy. This is the runbook for "actually go remote." Credentials and config already exist; this skill is about opting into remote and verifying you landed there.

This is distinct from /setup-snowflake (the first-time wizard that collects the connection fields, writes the password to .env, and verifies the native ConnectionManager session). Use this skill when the warehouse is already configured and you just want to query the live data through ConnectionManager.

When to Use

Trigger on any request to use the live/remote Snowflake data, e.g.:

• "connect to snowflake", "query snowflake", "use the live data / live warehouse"
• "run this against snowflake / the real data / production", "go remote"
• "is this hitting snowflake or duckdb?", "query the live tables"
• Any analysis where the user explicitly wants live warehouse numbers rather than the local DuckDB practice snapshot

How the repo decides local vs. remote

detect_active_source() (in helpers/data/data_helpers.py) defaults to the local DuckDB copy even though the active dataset declares connection_type: snowflake. It only goes remote when you opt in, via either:

• Env flag (per-shell): AAP_USE_REMOTE=1 (also accepts true / yes), OR
• Persisted flag: use_remote: true in .knowledge/active.yaml

Set use_remote: true in .knowledge/active.yaml for a persistent opt-in, and set AAP_USE_REMOTE=1 in the same shell command as python3 as a belt-and-suspenders guard. To confirm you actually landed on the warehouse (not the local fallback), call ConnectionManager.verify_remote(): it returns {"remote": bool, "identity": {account, warehouse, database, schema, version}, "reason": ...} from Snowflake's own session context functions. Treat remote: False as "you are NOT on Snowflake" and fix the reason before querying.

Instructions

Step 1 — Run through ConnectionManager with remote opted in

ConnectionManager auto-loads .env, expands the $SNOWFLAKE_* placeholders from the manifest, and lazy-connects. The export must be in the same Bash call as the python3 — shell env does not persist between separate tool calls.

export AAP_USE_REMOTE=1 && python3 -W ignore -c "
import warnings; warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')
from helpers.data.connection_manager import ConnectionManager
mgr = ConnectionManager()
print('backend:', mgr.connection_type)   # MUST print 'snowflake'
df = mgr.query('SELECT event_type, COUNT(*) n FROM events GROUP BY event_type ORDER BY n DESC')
print(df.to_string(index=False))
mgr.close()
"

Tables are unqualified in your configured schema (e.g. events, orders, sessions, users, promotions, products). Use Snowflake dialect: DATE_TRUNC('month', col), etc. — or get_dialect("snowflake") from helpers/data/sql_dialect.py.

Step 2 — Verify you're actually on Snowflake (not the DuckDB fallback)

Before trusting any number, confirm:

• mgr.connection_type returns snowflake (if it prints duckdb, the opt-in didn't take — re-check that export AAP_USE_REMOTE=1 ran in the same command).
• A SELECT CURRENT_ACCOUNT(), CURRENT_WAREHOUSE(), CURRENT_DATABASE(), CURRENT_SCHEMA() returns the account, warehouse, database, and schema from your own connection config (.env / connection_templates/) — compare against what you expect, never assume.

Always tell the user which source is live.

Step 3 — Log every query

ConnectionManager.query() auto-logs at execution by default — that covers the requirement. If you query some other way (raw connector, MCP), log manually:

python3 scripts/log_query.py --dataset {active} --agent ad-hoc \
  --purpose "..." --sql "..." --result "..."

Gotchas

• export AAP_USE_REMOTE=1 and the python3 call must share one Bash command (&&), or the flag is lost and you silently get DuckDB.
• Read .knowledge/datasets/{active}/quirks.md before trusting edge columns.
• Ignore the LibreSSL / urllib3 / NotOpenSSL warnings — harmless. Suppress with -W ignore + warnings.filterwarnings('ignore') as shown.
• Requires snowflake-connector-python (pip install -e ".[warehouses]"; see the /setup-snowflake prerequisite).
• The password lives in .env as SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD; account, user, warehouse, database, schema, and role live in the dataset manifest. Never echo or cat .env.

To go back to local DuckDB

Unset the opt-in: unset AAP_USE_REMOTE for the shell, and/or set use_remote: false in .knowledge/active.yaml. connection_type will then report duckdb.