Install Nimble MCP in Snowflake’s native AI coding agent. One command, OAuth sign-in, full web data toolkit in every Cortex Code session.
Cortex Code, Snowflake’s native AI coding agent for the terminal, is the first surface for connecting Nimble to Snowflake. One cortex mcp add command and an OAuth sign-in put Nimble’s full toolkit into every Cortex Code session.
Cortex Code writes the server to ~/.snowflake/cortex/mcp.json under the mcpServers key. No Authorization header is needed. Nimble’s MCP server advertises OAuth and Cortex Code handles the flow on first connection.
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Sign in with OAuth
On the first connection, Cortex Code opens your system browser to authenticate. Approve the requested scopes; Cortex Code stores the access and refresh tokens in your OS keychain (mcp_oauth_nimble) and refreshes them automatically before expiry.
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Verify the connection
List configured servers and trigger a connect:
cortex mcp listcortex mcp start
cortex mcp start reports connected and failed counts and waits up to 300 seconds for each server to load. Once nimble shows as connected, its tools are namespaced as mcp__nimble__search, mcp__nimble__extract, mcp__nimble__map, mcp__nimble__crawl, and so on.
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Use Nimble in a Cortex Code session
Start a session with cortex and ask the agent for anything that needs the live web. Cortex Code picks the right Nimble tool and runs it. No need to name the tool explicitly.
Cortex Code running Nimble Search inline with Snowflake skills
Paste any of these into a Cortex Code session. The agent picks the right Nimble tool and the right Snowflake skill, and chains them together.
1. Enrich a Snowflake table
“For each domain in ANALYTICS.CUSTOMERS.COMPANY_DOMAIN, use Nimble to extract the company’s current employee count and headquarters. Write results to ANALYTICS.STAGING.COMPANY_ENRICHMENT.”
2. Validate a semantic model
“Check each product URL in PRODUCT_CATALOG.URL with Nimble Extract, flagging rows where the product is no longer available and writing them to DATA_QUALITY.STALE_PRODUCTS.”
3. Build a Streamlit with live context
“Build a Streamlit app on SALES_MART.REVENUE that shows our top 10 accounts and uses Nimble Search to surface recent news for each one in a side panel.”
4. Prototype a Cortex Agent
“I’m scoping a competitive-research Cortex Agent. Use Nimble search and extract here so I can iterate on prompts and tool outputs, then turn the working chain into a Cortex Agent definition.”
Cortex Code admins can enforce Nimble MCP for an entire Snowflake account through Cortex Code’s managed settings. Add Nimble to the administrator-enforced mcpServers block (and optionally the URL allowlist), so every developer using Cortex Code gets the same connection without copy-pasting a command, and unsanctioned MCP servers are filtered out at merge time.
Pair this with permissions.json to pre-approve safe Nimble tools (mcp__nimble__search, mcp__nimble__extract) and require confirmation on long-running ones (mcp__nimble__crawl).
