agnes-the-ai-analyst/docs/welcome-template.md

Welcome prompt customization

The welcome prompt is the CLAUDE.md file generated in an analyst's local workspace by da analyst setup. It instructs Claude Code on how to behave in that workspace — which commands to use, where to read schema metadata, what metrics exist, what plugins are available.

Defaults

The OSS distribution ships a generic welcome prompt at config/claude_md_template.txt. Every Agnes instance starts with this default; no admin action is required.

Customizing per instance

Admins can override the template via:

• Admin UI: /admin/welcome — textarea editor with placeholder cheatsheet and live preview button. Save sends a PUT to /api/admin/welcome-template.
• REST API:
  • GET /api/admin/welcome-template — returns {content, default, updated_at, updated_by}. content is null when no override is set.
  • PUT /api/admin/welcome-template with body {"content": "..."} — validates Jinja2 syntax, stores the override.
  • DELETE /api/admin/welcome-template — clears the override; renderer falls back to the shipped default.
  • POST /api/admin/welcome-template/preview with body {"content": "..."} — renders arbitrary content against the calling admin's live context without persisting. Used by the editor's Preview button.

The override lives in system.duckdb (table welcome_template, singleton row id=1). Resetting via the UI or DELETE simply NULL-s content — the audit trail (updated_at, updated_by) is preserved.

Template language

Jinja2 with StrictUndefined. Any typo in a placeholder name raises an error at render time rather than silently emitting an empty string. Server returns HTTP 500 with a hint pointing at /admin/welcome; the admin UI rejects syntax errors AND undefined-placeholder errors with HTTP 400 on save (validated by rendering the template against a stub context before persisting).

Available placeholders

Placeholder	Type	Source
instance.name	string	instance.name in instance.yaml
instance.subtitle	string	instance.subtitle in instance.yaml
server.url	string	passed by the CLI (?server_url= query)
server.hostname	string	parsed from server.url
sync_interval	string	instance.sync_interval in instance.yaml (default "1 hour")
data_source.type	string	keboola | bigquery | local
tables	list	rows from table_registry, each {name, description, query_mode}
metrics.count	int	total rows in metric_definitions
metrics.categories	list[str]	distinct categories from metric_definitions
marketplaces	list	RBAC-filtered for the calling user, each {slug, name, plugins:[{name}]}
user.email	string	calling user
user.name	string	calling user
user.is_admin	bool	calling user
user.groups	list[str]	calling user's group names
now	datetime (UTC, tz-aware)	server time at render
today	string (YYYY-MM-DD)	server date

Timezone caveat: now is tz-aware UTC, while DB-sourced timestamps elsewhere in the codebase are naive (DuckDB stores TIMESTAMP, not TIMESTAMPTZ). Don't subtract or compare now with naive timestamps inside templates without normalising first.

RBAC

marketplaces is filtered through src.marketplace_filter.resolve_allowed_plugins — the same logic that gates /marketplace.zip. Two analysts with different group memberships will see different plugin lists in their CLAUDE.md.

Admin self-view caveat: Admin group is treated like any other group for marketplace filtering — there is no god-mode shortcut. An admin viewing the editor's Preview will see an empty marketplaces list unless the admin's groups have plugin grants. To populate the list, grant plugins to the Admin group (or any group the admin is a member of).

Example: minimal override

# {{ instance.name }}

This workspace is connected to {{ server.url }}.
You have access to {{ tables | length }} dataset(s):
{% for t in tables %}
- `{{ t.name }}`{% if t.description %}: {{ t.description }}{% endif %}
{%- endfor %}

Falling back to the default

Click Reset to default in the admin UI or DELETE /api/admin/welcome-template. The shipped default is always available as response.default in the GET endpoint, so admins can copy-paste it into the editor as a starting point for a new override.

Older-server compatibility

The CLI (da analyst setup) tolerates older servers that don't yet implement /api/welcome — on a 404, it writes a minimal embedded fallback CLAUDE.md and prints a stderr warning on any other failure mode (5xx, network, auth). Upgrade the server to get the full feature.