ClickHouse MCP Server

What is this?

The ClickHouse MCP Server is a specialized adapter within the Model Context Protocol ecosystem that bridges AI agents, language models, and conversational tools with ClickHouse, an open-source columnar OLAP database renowned for its blazing-fast analytics on large datasets. Packaged as @modelcontextprotocol/server-clickhouse, it lets developers send natural language queries and SQL commands directly to ClickHouse instances while receiving structured, streamed results back into their AI-driven applications.

By abstracting away SQL syntax, connection management, and result streaming, this server makes real-time data insights accessible to business users, BI tools, and AI assistants. It translates conversational prompts into optimized SQL, manages secure TLS connections to clusters, and streams results in chunks for low latency and minimal memory usage. Within the MCP ecosystem, it plugs in alongside other services to provide a unified, language-agnostic interface for analytics, reporting, and dynamic dashboarding.

Quick Start

Install the server using npm:

npm install @modelcontextprotocol/server-clickhouse

Then add it to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clickhouse": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-clickhouse"],
      "env": {
        "API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Key Features

Natural Language to SQL: Empower business users and LLMs to formulate analytical questions in plain English without writing raw SQL.

High-Speed Analytics: Leverage ClickHouse’s columnar engine and distributed clustering for sub-second aggregations on terabyte-scale data.

Streamed Results & Tooling: Integrate result streaming hooks, visualization adapters, and custom dashboard tools for real-time data consumption.

Example Usage

Here’s how to ask the server to translate a natural language query into SQL:

// Example code
const result = await client.callTool({
  name: "clickhouse.nl-to-sql",
  arguments: {
    prompt: "Show me the total sales by region"
  }
});

This code sends a prompt to the server, which returns optimized SQL ready for execution against your ClickHouse cluster.

Configuration

The server accepts the following environment variables:

API_KEY – Your MCP API key for authenticating client requests.

USE_LLM (optional) – Toggle LLM-based translation of prompts on or off.

Available Tools/Resources

clickhouse.query: Execute ad-hoc SQL queries against ClickHouse.

mcp.clickhouse.explain: Return an EXPLAIN ANALYZE plan for a given SQL query.

Who Should Use This?

This server is perfect for:

Use case 1: Data analysts and BI teams who need real-time OLAP insights without deep SQL expertise.

Use case 2: AI developers building conversational interfaces for data exploration.

Use case 3: Data engineers integrating ClickHouse into ETL, dashboards, or workflow pipelines.

Conclusion

The ClickHouse MCP Server accelerates time-to-insight by seamlessly translating natural language and SQL commands, streaming results, and managing secure connections to ClickHouse clusters. Try it today and unlock real-time analytics for your AI-driven applications.

Check out the GitHub repository for more information and to contribute.