@shahid.la/cds-db-nlquery-mcp

MCP server for natural language queries against CDS db-layer entities (db/schema.cds).

Ask questions about your database in plain English. The server discovers your schema automatically, generates real SQL JOINs using CDS, and returns rows. No hardcoded queries, no SQL, no schema configuration. Bring your own LLM: Anthropic or OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Azure OpenAI, Groq, Ollama, local models, etc.).

Targets the db/ layer, not OData services. If your entities are exposed as OData services, use an MCP package that targets the service layer instead.

Read-only. This package only executes SELECT queries. No INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE.

Prerequisites

• A CAP project with @sap/cds >= 7
• A configured CDS database (HANA Cloud, SQLite, PostgreSQL)
• An MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or any MCP-compatible host)
• An API key for an LLM provider (see LLM provider below), used to translate your question into a query, not to answer it

Quick start

1. Install in your CAP project

npm install @shahid.la/cds-db-nlquery-mcp

2. Create .mcp.json in your CAP project root (same folder as package.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cds-db-nlquery": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@shahid.la/cds-db-nlquery-mcp"],
      "cwd": "/absolute/path/to/your/cap/project",
      "env": {
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-ant-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Set cwd to the absolute path of your CAP project root, where db/schema.cds lives. See LLM provider for using OpenAI, Gemini, or another provider instead.

npx -y re-resolves the package on every server start (from npm's cache once downloaded, not a fresh network fetch each time, but still an extra resolution step). If you've run npm install @shahid.la/cds-db-nlquery-mcp already, you can point "command" at the installed binary directly instead, node_modules/.bin/cds-db-nlquery-mcp, for a slightly more predictable startup, especially in production.

3. Open your project in Claude Code and ask a question

Which customers have a DTI ratio above 5?
Show me all open payments overdue by more than 30 days, include the borrower name.
List all loans in the MINING sector with the customer's current DTI ratio.

Example response: the server tells the client to render rows as a vertical field/value list, not a markdown table (real output, verified against a live deployment):

Found 3 customers with DTI above 5:

PARTNER    : 30100003
DTI_RATIO  : 7.20
BU_SORT1   : Domestic Customer AU 3

PARTNER    : 30100001
DTI_RATIO  : 5.80
BU_SORT1   : Domestic Customer AU 1

PARTNER    : 30100002
DTI_RATIO  : 5.40
BU_SORT1   : Domestic Customer AU 2

How it works

When you ask a question:

1. Your MCP client (e.g. Claude Code) calls the natural_language_query tool with your question.
2. The MCP server has already loaded your CDS schema at startup: entity names, columns, and associations. It sends this schema plus your question to the LLM provider you configured (Anthropic, OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint), which translates it into a structured query descriptor.
3. The server executes a single CDS query. CDS association paths (customer.BU_SORT1) generate real SQL JOINs, executed by your database, not by JavaScript. Scales to production data volumes.
4. Results come back to your MCP client, which formats and presents the answer.

The LLM call in step 2 is a small, cheap planning step (translating your question into JSON). It does not need a large or expensive model. A fast/cheap tier model is recommended.

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables in the .mcp.json env block.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cds-db-nlquery": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@shahid.la/cds-db-nlquery-mcp"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/your/cap/project",
      "env": {
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-ant-...",
        "MCP_ALLOWED_ENTITIES": "Customers,Orders,Products",
        "MCP_BLOCKED_COLUMNS": "PASSWORD,EMBEDDING,SSN",
        "MCP_MAX_ROWS": "100",
        "MCP_MODEL_PATH": "db"
      }
    }
  }
}

LLM provider

A small LLM call translates your question into a query descriptor. Bring your own provider, set ONE of the following in the env block:

Anthropic (Claude):

"env": {
  "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-ant-...",
  "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001"
}

OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible provider:

"env": {
  "OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-...",
  "OPENAI_MODEL": "gpt-4o-mini"
}

OPENAI_MODEL accepts any model name. Use whatever your provider expects. Set OPENAI_BASE_URL to point at a different OpenAI-compatible endpoint:

This is a planning-only call (question to JSON descriptor). A fast/cheap tier model is sufficient and recommended.

Security

Development

The server uses your project's existing database connection, whatever CDS has configured in default-env.json or your service binding. No extra setup needed.

Production

Important: this package queries the database directly via cds.run(). It does not go through the CAP service layer, so CAP @requires and @restrict annotations are not enforced. Access control is entirely your responsibility at the database and configuration level.

Step 1: Create a dedicated read-only database user

-- Run as DBADMIN in SAP HANA Cloud Central
CREATE USER MCP_READER PASSWORD 'your-password';
GRANT SELECT ON SCHEMA YOUR_HDI_SCHEMA TO MCP_READER;

-- Revoke tables you do not want queryable
REVOKE SELECT ON "YOUR_HDI_SCHEMA"."your.AuditLog" FROM MCP_READER;
REVOKE SELECT ON "YOUR_HDI_SCHEMA"."your.RegulatoryDocuments" FROM MCP_READER;

This user can only read. No write access. HANA itself enforces it, independently of this package.

Step 2: Point the server at it with MCP_DB_USER/MCP_DB_PASSWORD

The server connects with these credentials instead of inheriting your app's own database connection. Host, port, and schema are reused automatically, only the user/password are overridden:

"env": {
  "MCP_DB_USER": "MCP_READER",
  "MCP_DB_PASSWORD": "your-password"
}

If you keep these in a separate gitignored file instead of directly in .mcp.json, that's fine too. The server just reads process.env, same as any other variable here.

Step 3: Set MCP_ALLOWED_ENTITIES

"env": {
  "MCP_ALLOWED_ENTITIES": "Customers,Orders,Products"
}

This is enforced on the entity you query directly and on any entity reached via an association join in select/where. For example, if Customers isn't in the allowlist, a query against Orders can't read Customers data through a customer.NAME join path either. The database user restricts access at the HANA level; MCP_ALLOWED_ENTITIES adds a second layer at the application level. Use both.

Joins

The server reads CDS associations from your schema. When the LLM references customer.BU_SORT1 in a query, CDS generates a real SQL JOIN, executed by the database.

Multiple associations in one query work:

"Show loans in the MINING sector with borrower name and current DTI"

Generates a single SQL statement joining Loans → BusinessPartners → BCA_DTI in one database round-trip.

One constraint: do not select the same column name from two different entities in the same query (e.g. LOAN_ID from both the main entity and a joined entity). The database rejects duplicate column names. Claude is instructed to avoid this, but worth being aware of.

Comparing two columns to each other

Most filters compare a column to a fixed value (DTI_RATIO > 5). For questions like "which loans have collateral worth less than the loan amount", the comparison is between two columns instead. Use valCol in place of val:

{ "col": "collateral.VALUE", "op": "<", "valCol": "AMOUNT" }