StreamSnow ❄️

An open-source toolkit for building, governing, and shipping Streamlit-in-Snowflake apps with Claude Code.

Scaffold a governed monorepo, build dashboards inside enforced data-governance guardrails, and deploy them to Snowflake — without learning the rules by hand.

Status: beta, functional. The CLI (configure / init / new / doctor / validate-app / preview / check / sql-review / review-gate / review-loop / migrate / nav / deploy-sql / deploy-setup / verify-deploy / update / agent-skills) and the Claude Code plugin (8 skills + shared recipes) are implemented and CI-green for both runtimes and both deploy sources. Published on PyPI (uvx streamsnow / pip install streamsnow); APIs may still evolve toward 1.0.

Mission

StreamSnow aims to let a data team build and ship Streamlit-in-Snowflake apps quickly and safely, by turning production lessons into scaffolding and checks that people and AI sessions can follow without having to remember them.

Vision

A data professional, with or without an AI assistant, can take a dashboard from idea to a governed, verified deployment in Snowflake without learning the platform's traps the hard way, and a reviewer with Snowsight can re-run the SQL behind the numbers it shows.

This is for you if:

• ✅ you run, or will run, more than one Streamlit app in Snowflake with more than one author
• ✅ you want Claude Code sessions and humans held to the same governance rules
• ✅ you want a reviewer to re-run a dashboard's SQL in Snowsight without reading Python
• ❌ you host Streamlit outside Snowflake, or you need a scheduler or a data catalog (StreamSnow does neither)
• ❌ your dashboards are for people without Snowflake logins, out of the box (possible with customization; see below)

Where it fits next to a BI tool. For internal analytics, meaning dashboards your own Snowflake users open in Snowsight, StreamSnow can replace a BI tool: the apps are reviewed Python, they run where the data lives, and Snowflake roles manage access. Customer-facing dashboards, embedding, and pixel-perfect scheduled reports are possible but need customization beyond what ships today.

Who can use this. Anyone with a Snowflake account (any edition runs Streamlit in Snowflake; StreamSnow does not need Enterprise-only masking or row access policies) and either a role with CREATE STREAMLIT on one schema or an admin willing to run the one-time bootstrap that streamsnow deploy-setup --admin prints (Deploy setup). Building and previewing locally needs only a login that can read your data.

Principles every change is judged against:

1. One implementation, many consumers: CLI, plugin, pre-commit, and CI call the same code.
2. Detection is automated and total; destruction requires explicit committed consent.
3. The backstop asks; it never decides: the gates are validate-app and CI, not the review nudge.
4. Org knowledge lives in streamsnow.config.yaml and .streamsnow/overlays/, never in skills.
5. Every rule names the incident that created it and the mechanism that enforces it.
6. Degrade, don't die: a missing enabler is named, not refused.
7. Faithful to a real fleet: a check that fails a well-run production app is a defect in the check until proven otherwise (tests/fixtures/fleet/ is the regression net).
8. Leaving should be cheap: everything StreamSnow writes is a plain file the repo keeps (Ownership and exit).

Install with your coding agent

Point any coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and others) at this repo and say: "Read the install prompt in github.com/kyle-chalmers/streamsnow and follow it." Or paste the prompt in yourself:

Install StreamSnow (https://github.com/kyle-chalmers/streamsnow) for me at the
project level: enable the plugin and install the skills for this repo only,
never at the user level. Confirm with me before installing anything, and stop at
each question you cannot answer on my behalf.

1. Work in the git repo for my Snowflake apps. Ask me which folder if unsure; if it
   is new, create it and run `git init`. Run every command below from its root.

2. If you are Claude Code: run
   `claude plugin marketplace add --scope project kyle-chalmers/streamsnow` and then
   `claude plugin install --scope project streamsnow@streamsnow`. Both record the
   plugin in this repo's .claude/settings.json, not my user settings. Tell me to
   type `/reload-plugins` (no restart needed) and then `/start-app --setup`. Stop
   there; that skill does the rest.

3. Any other agent: make sure `uv` is installed, then run `uv tool install streamsnow`
   and confirm `streamsnow --version` answers (the CLI is a command on my PATH; the
   skills call it by name). Run `streamsnow doctor` and fix each failing required
   check one at a time, re-running doctor after each fix.

4. If the repo already has Streamlit apps, read
   https://github.com/kyle-chalmers/streamsnow/blob/main/skills/start-app/adopt.md and
   follow that instead of scaffolding. Otherwise set up with `streamsnow init --no-starter-app`.
   Its wizard asks five questions. Answer what you can first with read-only SHOW queries
   over whatever Snowflake access I already have (my default snow connection, a Snowflake
   MCP server, a dbt profile), ask me only what you could not settle, then pass the
   confirmed answers as flags (see `streamsnow init --help`). If you cannot, hand the
   wizard to me.

5. Run `streamsnow agent-skills install --agent codex` (repo scope, the default; never
   `--scope user`). It copies the skills into this repo's .agents/skills, which Codex
   reads; any other agent can open .agents/skills/start-app/SKILL.md directly. Then
   follow start-app to build my first app.

Rules: never ask me for Snowflake credentials (I run `snow connection add` myself
when init prints it), and never run the admin DDL that `streamsnow deploy-setup --admin`
prints; show it to me for my Snowflake admin.

Only Claude Code and Codex are tested. Prefer to type the steps yourself? See Quickstart, and Use with other agents for what differs outside Claude Code.

How the skills fit together

The source is docs/images/skills-flow.excalidraw; open it at excalidraw.com to edit, then re-export the PNG.

What it is

StreamSnow is a hybrid of two things that work together:

1. A streamsnow CLI (PyPI) — scaffolds a governed Streamlit-in-Snowflake monorepo, runs an interactive setup wizard, and vendors the validation tools, CI, pre-commit hooks, and branding your repo needs.
2. A Claude Code plugin (marketplace) — ships the skills and hooks that turn Claude Code into a domain expert for this stack: /start-app (the front door), /preview-app, /validate-app, /review-app, /ship-app, and more.

Think a Claude Code skill pack fused with an installable system + setup. The CLI gives you the substrate; the plugin gives Claude the playbook. A single streamsnow.config.yaml is the source of truth both read from.

Why

Building Streamlit apps on Snowflake well means getting a hundred small things right: caching with TTLs, parameterized SQL that survives the deployed Go driver, runtime selection (container vs. warehouse), schema access guardrails, a deploy pipeline, branding, and review discipline. StreamSnow encodes those as executable guardrails — pre-commit + CI gates, scaffolding templates, and Claude Code skills — so every developer (and every Claude session) follows the same rules and ships safely.

Two things you choose

StreamSnow treats two axes as first-class, configurable options:

Quickstart

Two lanes; pick the one that matches how you work. Both end at the same governed repo, and both need Python 3.11+, uv, and git (uvx streamsnow doctor tells you what is missing).

With Claude Code (recommended)

From the root of your apps repo, install the plugin at project scope (it is recorded in the repo's .claude/settings.json, not your user settings):

claude plugin marketplace add --scope project kyle-chalmers/streamsnow
claude plugin install --scope project streamsnow@streamsnow

Then, in a Claude Code session in that repo, load it without restarting and start setup:

/reload-plugins
/start-app --setup

/reload-plugins picks up the plugin's skills and hooks in the running session. StreamSnow's one-line session-start message first appears in your next session.

/start-app --setup installs the streamsnow CLI if it is missing, runs the doctor, walks each missing prerequisite one confirmation at a time, runs streamsnow init --no-starter-app (the five-question wizard plus the governed repo files: AGENTS.md, pre-commit hooks, CI, .gitignore, README; no example app), and hands you to /start-app to build your first app. You don't answer the wizard cold: Claude reads your account with read-only SHOW queries over the Snowflake access you already have (your snow connection, a Snowflake MCP server, a dbt profile), asks only what it could not settle, and runs init with the answers you confirm or change. In a repo that already has Streamlit apps it switches to adopt mode (maps onto what exists, writes MIGRATION.md, never scaffolds over you).

CLI only

uv tool install streamsnow           # persistent `streamsnow` on your PATH
mkdir my-snowflake-apps && cd my-snowflake-apps
streamsnow init                      # 5-question wizard, then a governed scaffold
# or skip the prompts: streamsnow init --runtime warehouse --account <locator> \
#   --database ANALYTICS --schemas MARTS,REPORTING --deploy-source stage-copy
snow connection add --connection-name <name> --account <locator> \
  --user <you> --authenticator externalbrowser --default   # init prints the exact command
uv tool install pre-commit && pre-commit install
streamsnow validate-app example-dashboard                 # PASS proves the scaffold is whole
uv venv --python 3.11 && uv pip install -e apps/example-dashboard   # container runtime
streamsnow preview example-dashboard

On the warehouse runtime an app has environment.yml instead of pyproject.toml, so install its packages directly (init and streamsnow preview print the exact line).

One connection store: st.connection("snowflake") reads the snow CLI's default connection locally, so the per-app secrets.toml is an optional override, not a second place to type the same values.

Upgrading

The two halves upgrade separately, and the plugin half does not pick up hook or skill changes on its own — an installed copy stays at the version it was installed at until you reinstall it.

claude plugin list                                              # installed plugin version
claude plugin uninstall --scope project streamsnow@streamsnow
claude plugin install --scope project streamsnow@streamsnow    # then /reload-plugins in Claude Code

uv tool upgrade streamsnow               # the CLI
streamsnow update                        # dry-run: governance files the new templates would change
streamsnow update --apply                # re-render AGENTS.md, hooks, CI, deploy.yml

Generated CI pins streamsnow>=0.7,<0.8 (the deploy workflow >=0.7.2,<0.8); bump the pin with update --apply when you move majors. claude plugin details streamsnow@streamsnow lists the 8 skills below.

The skills

One front door plus focused verbs — each skill's SKILL.md stays under 80 lines, with depth in per-skill reference files:

Use with other agents

The skills are plain SKILL.md folders in the open Agent Skills format, so a coding agent other than Claude Code can follow them. OpenAI Codex CLI 0.157.1 is the only one tested. The CLI installs them where Codex looks:

streamsnow agent-skills install --agent codex               # <repo>/.agents/skills; commit it
streamsnow agent-skills list --agent codex                  # what is installed, and from which version

Then ask Codex for a skill by name ($start-app) or in plain words ("use the StreamSnow start-app skill to build..."). In a test with codex exec, Codex found the skills in .agents/skills, read the SKILL.md files and the recipes they link, and finished an offline app build that passed validate-app. The install is a copy: re-run it after uv tool upgrade streamsnow, and put repo-specific changes in .streamsnow/overlays/, because the command refuses to overwrite an edited skill without --force.

The same under any agent: the streamsnow CLI and its checks, validate-app, the pre-commit hooks and CI. They run outside the agent.

Different outside Claude Code (each skill points the agent at skills/_shared/other-agents.md):

• Skill names. /ship-app is Claude Code's syntax; Codex uses $ship-app. The install marks ship-app and migrate-app explicit-only in Codex (allow_implicit_invocation: false), matching their disable-model-invocation in Claude Code.
• Checkpoints. A checkpoint is a question the agent stops at. codex exec cannot ask you, so a non-interactive run stops at the first checkpoint its prompt does not answer. In the test it stopped at the spec checkpoint, and a second run whose prompt gave that answer resumed from REQUIREMENTS.md.
• Reviewers. /review-app fans out reviewers as Claude Code subagents; the skill tells an agent without subagents to run the same briefs one after another.
• Claude Code only: the plugin hooks in Hooks, in full have no Codex equivalent, so StreamSnow cannot pause a destructive snow command, nudge for a review, or print its session-start line there. The skills ask the agent to keep those guards by hand, and in the test Codex ran streamsnow review-gate classify itself. Those guards now rest on the agent following the skill; nothing enforces them.

The audit trail (new in 0.6)

Every query under apps/<slug>/queries/ gets a human-runnable proof: a fully-rendered, paste-runnable .review.sql under apps/<slug>/sql_review/, generated from a per-feature manifest and verified by an import-free freshness

• coverage gate (streamsnow sql-review check). Coverage is keyed to the queries/ convention — the same place the validate gate pushes UI-feeding SQL — so SQL inlined in Python sits outside its reach. Drift, hand edits, unbound binds and write statements always fail the gate; whether an uncovered query fails or warns is your repo's call — sql_review: {coverage: warn | fail} in streamsnow.config.yaml (default warn, so an adopting fleet backfills on its own schedule; new in 0.7, replacing the 0.6 "warn now, FAIL later" promise). A person with nothing but Snowsight can trace a covered visual back to the data and confirm it — see Auditing a visual. For dashboards whose visuals aggregate differently than any single query, "mode": "metrics" manifests (0.6.1) render one authored block per visual.

Make it yours — repo overlays (new in 0.6.1)

The skills are generic procedures; your org's knowledge layers on top without forking them. Commit .streamsnow/overlays/<skill>.md files and every skill reads its overlay first — extra steps, local failure signatures, environment specifics, explicit overrides. Plugin upgrades never touch them; overlays may not skip mandatory gate invocations, and the coded gates (hooks, CI, pre-commit) run outside skill prose entirely. See skills/_shared/overlays.md.

Hooks, in full

Trust demands transparency: this plugin runs hooks, so here is every one of them. All are stdlib-only, make no network calls, never write outside the repo (plus one best-effort dedupe state file in $TMPDIR, so the review nudge fires once per state, not every turn), and fail open — a hook error never blocks your session; the guards only ever add a confirmation or a note.

All hooks are repo-gated on streamsnow.config.yaml — zero cost in unrelated repos — and declare explicit timeouts so a hung hook can never stall a session. To turn them off, disable the plugin (claude plugin disable streamsnow). Hook additions do not reach installed copies automatically — see Upgrading.

How it's organized

streamsnow/            the PyPI package — CLI, config, policy, scaffolder, tools
  ├── cli.py           configure / init / new / doctor / check
  ├── config.py        typed + validated streamsnow.config.yaml model
  ├── policy.py        schema allow/deny single source of truth
  ├── scaffolder.py    renders a governed repo from config
  ├── _templates/      the Jinja scaffold templates (repo/ + app/)
  └── tools/           governance checks + engines (schema refs, security,
                       caching, dependency vulns, tombstones, path leaks,
                       sql_review generator, review gate/loop, migrate, doctor)
.claude-plugin/        Claude Code plugin manifest + marketplace
skills/  agents/  hooks/   Claude Code plugin surface (skills + SessionStart hook)
docs/  examples/            guides + a runnable no-Snowflake example app

Active scaffolding lives in streamsnow/ (templates under streamsnow/_templates/).

The streamsnow Python package is the single source of truth for tool logic: the CLI, the Claude Code plugin, pre-commit, and CI all call the same code — one implementation, many consumers.

Documentation

• Getting started — run the example with no Snowflake, then scaffold and preview your own governed app.
• Data discovery — find tables and wire queries inside the schema-access guardrails.
• Deploying — ship apps to Snowflake on merge, for both deploy sources.
• Deploy setup — the one-time Snowflake objects and CI secrets the pipeline needs.
• Switching to Git repository: when to deploy from a Snowflake GIT REPOSITORY instead of a stage, and how to switch.
• Auditing a visual — the five-minute runbook for confirming any dashboard number against the warehouse, no code required.
• Production lessons — the incidents behind the guardrails, genericized.
• Troubleshooting — numbered symptom / cause / fix entries for the first-run and deploy failures people actually hit.
• Official Snowflake docs, by topic — every external docs link the toolkit relies on, with scope, retrieved date, and where StreamSnow deliberately differs.
• Distribution — how StreamSnow ships (PyPI CLI + plugin) and why there's no separate copy-paste kit.
• Migrating a consumer repo — bring a repo with home-grown skills onto the plugin (skill map + incremental path).

License

MIT © Kyle Chalmers

StreamSnow is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Snowflake Inc., Streamlit, or Anthropic.