mcp-bigquery-evals

An MCP server for BigQuery exploration with cost guardrails and a built-in NL→SQL eval harness.

What it is

A Model Context Protocol server that lets Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Claude Code explore and query a BigQuery warehouse safely.

• 7 read-only tools for warehouse discovery + querying
• Mandatory dry-run cost cap on every run_query (default 100 MB scanned, ≈ $0.0005)
• Built-in eval harness with result-set-equivalence methodology — every release ships an accuracy number, not a vibe

Two clients ship in the box: RealBigQueryClient (production) and FakeBigQueryClient (in-memory, sqlite-backed; for dev and CI without GCP credentials).

Quickstart (5 minutes)

1. Install

uvx mcp-bigquery-evals --help

(Or pip install mcp-bigquery-evals if you prefer.)

2. Authenticate to GCP

gcloud auth application-default login

3. Add to claude_desktop_config.json

Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config, then add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bigquery": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-bigquery-evals", "serve"],
      "env": {
        "BIGQUERY_PROJECT": "your-personal-gcp-project-id"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. You should see "bigquery" with 7 tools in the MCP indicator.

4. Try it

Ask Claude:

"Using the bigquery tool, find the top 5 most-viewed Stack Overflow questions tagged 'python'."

Claude will use list_datasets → list_tables → describe_table → run_query to explore and answer. Every run_query is dry-run-cost-capped before execution.

The 7 tools

All tools are read-only. There are no write operations in v1 by design. See docs/architecture.md.

Cost guardrails

Every run_query call dry-runs first (free) before execution. If the dry-run estimate exceeds max_bytes_scanned (default 100 MB), the call returns a structured error rather than running:

{
  "error": "cost_cap_exceeded",
  "would_scan": "1.4 GB",
  "cap": "100.0 MB",
  "estimated_usd": 0.007,
  "hint": "narrow your WHERE clause or pass max_bytes_scanned=1500000000 to override"
}

The agent can read the structured error and self-correct (narrow the WHERE clause, raise the cap explicitly, etc.).

Structured BigQuery errors

When something goes wrong against real BigQuery, the response is a stable code an agent can reason about:

Eval harness

Every release runs a result-set-equivalence eval suite against bigquery-public-data and updates the accuracy badge above. Run locally:

mcp-bigquery-evals evals run --model claude-haiku-4-5

See docs/how_evals_work.md for the methodology, golden pairs format, and how to add your own.

Why this exists

There are a few BigQuery MCP servers floating around. This one is different in three ways:

1. Cost guardrails are mandatory and surfaced as structured errors agents can act on. Most don't have them.
2. Result-set-equivalence evals ship in the box, with a live accuracy badge in this README. Agent quality is measurable, not assumed.
3. Read-only by design — no INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE. The blast radius of an LLM mistake is bounded to scanning bytes, not mutating data.

Development

git clone https://github.com/Umarfarook1/mcp-bigquery-evals
cd mcp-bigquery-evals
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest                    # unit tests (no GCP needed)
pytest -m bq              # real-BQ integration tests (needs GCP)
pytest -m live            # end-to-end with real model + real BQ

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. Especially valuable:

• More golden NL→SQL pairs (hand-verified, against bigquery-public-data)
• Improved prompts (with eval numbers showing the change moves the accuracy badge)
• Bug reports with reproduction steps