MCP + Skills Framework: Guiding AI Agents for Efficient Data Science Workflows
A DevTalk on guiding AI agents (Claude, GPT) to operate correctly within a specific data platform, using an MCP server + skills framework. The core problem: agents are good at figuring out what to do in a data science workflow, but poor at choosing how to do it efficiently on a real data platform.
Common Agent Inefficiencies
- Generating client-heavy code instead of pushing work down to the database
- Moving more data/tokens than needed
- Ignoring native capabilities (analytics functions, ML, etc.)
- Falling back to generic patterns that don't scale
Solution: MCP Server + Skills Framework
Instead of letting the agent “figure it out,” constrain and guide it with platform-aware context. The approach focuses on:
- Selecting the right analytic functions
- Knowing when SQL isn't enough
- Using in-database ML / stats / text / vector operations
- Chaining everything into end-to-end workflows that are actually deployable
Resources
- Repo: github.com/ksturgeon-td/tdsql-mcp
- Free environment to try it: Teradata ClearScape Analytics Demo
- Live session recording: YouTube
If you're experimenting with Claude + MCP or tool use and have hit inefficiency or hallucination issues with real data systems, this approach is worth exploring.
📖 Read the full source: r/ClaudeAI
👀 See Also
Claude Proposal: Scope Memory & Hermetic Instance Isolation
A formal proposal to Anthropic from a power user: global/local memory scoping and hermetic instance isolation for Claude, enabling deterministic, auditable sessions.
Claude Desktop App Cowork Feature Enables AI-to-AI Communication via Shared Google Docs
Users have successfully implemented Claude-to-Claude communication using the new cowork function in the desktop app, with two agents reading and writing to a shared Google Doc. The test involved five rounds of question-and-answer dialogue between the AI agents.
hipEngine: Fast Native Qwen 3.6 Inference for RDNA3 (Strix Halo, 7900 XTX)
hipEngine is a new open-source (AGPLv3) ROCm-native inference engine for Qwen 3.6 MoE on RDNA3 GPUs. Benchmarks show prefill up to 2718 tok/s on 7900 XTX, competitive with llama.cpp, and INT8 KV cache enabling full 256K context in under 24GB.
Kanban CLI: A Local-First, Agent-First Task Manager for the Terminal
Kanban CLI is a Rust-based terminal tool that provides structured task tracking with full git integration, designed for AI agent-driven workflows.