Connect dbt to Claude Cowork
Give Claude Cowork governed access to dbt’s 42 tools through Runlayer, with identity, policy, scanning, and audit on every call.
Set up
Add dbt to Claude Cowork in four steps
Admins approve the server once. Everyone in Claude Cowork then gets it through the same governed connection.
- 1
Approve dbt in Runlayer
Add dbt from the catalog and choose who can use it and which of its tools are allowed.
- 2
Connect Claude Cowork to Runlayer
Claude Cowork gets connector tools through the Runlayer Plugin. With direct tool listing turned on for your deployment, dbt’s 42 tools show up in Claude Cowork’s own tool list.
Claude Cowork setup guide - 3
Sign in to dbt
Sign in the way dbt requires. Runlayer holds the credentials so they stay out of the client’s configuration.
- 4
Use dbt from Claude Cowork
dbt’s approved tools appear in Claude Cowork. Every call is checked against policy and recorded.
Tools
42 dbt tools in Claude Cowork
Runlayer policy decides which of these Claude Cowork users can call.
Cancel job run
Cancel a currently running or queued dbt run.
Get all macros
Get the name, description, and package name of all dbt macros in the environment.
Get all models
Get the name and description of all dbt models in the environment.
Get all sources
Get the name, description, and metadata of all dbt sources in the environment.
Get dimension values
Get the distinct values for a given dimension, optionally scoped to specific metrics.
Get dimensions
Get the dimensions for specified metrics
Get entities
Get the entities for specified metrics
Get exposure details
DEPRECATED — use get_node_details instead.
Control
What Runlayer can see and stop in Claude Cowork
Some controls apply to every client at the gateway. Others depend on what Claude Cowork exposes to Runlayer.
Gateway policy (available)
Every dbt call from Claude Cowork passes through Runlayer, where your policies can allow, alert, mask, or block it.
Audit trail (available)
Each call is recorded with the user, Claude Cowork as the client, the tool, and the policy and scanner decisions.
Anthropic inference hooks (available)
Anthropic Inference hooks let Runlayer check Claude Cowork prompts before inference.
OTLP telemetry (available)
Claude Cowork can send supported OpenTelemetry events to Runlayer for observe-only session visibility.
Stop a call before it runs (available)
Runlayer can reject a Claude Cowork prompt before Anthropic runs it, which stops the whole request rather than one tool call.
Block output after it runs (available)
Because Runlayer checks the full prompt, tool results in it can be blocked before the model sees them.
Redact output in place (not available)
Runlayer cannot mask content in Claude Cowork. The gateway still applies policy to the call.
In Claude Cowork
- Cowork session data sent over OpenTelemetry is for monitoring only and cannot stop anything.
Frequently asked questions
Connect more
