Connect your database

Wren AI talks to your database through a profile — credentials and connection details stored in ~/.wren/profiles.yml. Once a profile is bound to a project, every CLI command and SDK call uses it.

The flow is the same regardless of which database you use:

Install the connector extra for your data source.
Create a profile with wren profile add (or let the wren-onboarding skill do it).
Bind the profile to your project with wren context set-profile.
Generate the MDL with the wren-generate-mdl skill (or manually).
Start querying.

If you have an AI coding agent installed, the wren-onboarding skill drives the whole thing — see Installation.

Supported data sources

Data source	Connector extra
DuckDB	(included)
PostgreSQL	`postgres`
MySQL	`mysql`
BigQuery	`bigquery`
Snowflake	`snowflake`
ClickHouse	`clickhouse`
Trino / Presto	`trino`
SQL Server	`mssql`
Databricks	`databricks`
Redshift	`redshift`
Oracle	`oracle`
Athena	`athena`
Spark	`spark`

Install one or more extras together:

pip install "wren-engine[postgres,bigquery,main]"

Inspecting connection fields

To see the exact fields required and accepted by a connector, run:

wren docs connection-info <ds>

The output is generated directly from the engine's connection schema, so it always matches the version of wren-engine you have installed. Examples:

wren docs connection-info postgres
wren docs connection-info bigquery
wren docs connection-info snowflake

Use this instead of memorizing field names — the CLI is the source of truth.

Creating a profile

The browser UI is the easiest way:

wren profile add my-db --ui

Or use the interactive flow:

wren profile add my-db --interactive

Or import from a YAML file (recommended for agent-driven setups so secrets live in .env):

wren profile add my-db --from-file connection.yml

Verifying the connection

wren profile debug   # show resolved config (secrets masked)
wren --sql "SELECT 1"

If the connection fails, check credentials, network reachability, SSL settings, and IP allowlists on the cloud-database side.

Binding the profile to a project

cd ~/my-project
wren context set-profile my-db

This writes profile: my-db and data_source: <ds> into wren_project.yml. Future commands in this project always use this profile, regardless of which profile is globally active.

Next steps

Generate MDL — let the agent introspect your schema
Memory — how the index keeps your queries accurate
Profiles — managing multiple profiles

Supported data sources​

Inspecting connection fields​

Creating a profile​

Verifying the connection​

Binding the profile to a project​

Next steps​