Claude can talk directly to Foreman Intelligence, so you can ask for a dashboard in plain language instead of clicking through the Looker UI. This guide walks through installing Claude, connecting the two, and then how to actually use it.
| Audience | any Foreman Intelligence user |
| Setup time | ~15 minutes |
| Requires | a Claude account |
Pick your operating system here. You'll choose between Claude Desktop and Claude Code in Step 2, and every step adjusts to show only the instructions for your combination.
Contents
1What you get
Once connected, Claude can read your Foreman Intelligence models the same way you would in Looker's Explore view, then act on what it finds. In practice that means you can ask Claude to:
- Look through available Explores, dimensions, and measures for a topic ("What miners are rebooting more frequently than others?")
- Run a query and show you the result before anything gets saved
- Build a new Look or Dashboard from a description of what you want to see
- Add tiles, filters, or a new element to a dashboard that already exists
- Hand you a link to view or embed the result
One thing Claude can't do out of the box is delete. When you want a Look, dashboard, tile, or filter gone, you remove it yourself in Foreman Intelligence. Step 10 covers how, and points to an optional add-on if you'd rather Claude handle it.
Claude only sees what your own Foreman Intelligence account can see. It isn't a separate service account with broader access, so your existing model and folder permissions still apply.
2Which Claude app should I pick?
Both apps connect to Foreman Intelligence the same way, and everything in this guide works in either one. The difference is where you talk to Claude:
- Claude Desktop is a normal chat app. If you mostly want to ask questions and build dashboards without touching a terminal, pick this one.
- Claude Code (CLI) runs in a terminal. Pick this one if you already work in a terminal or want to use the same Claude setup for other technical work.
If you're not sure, choose Claude Desktop. You can always add the other later, and both can share the same connector and API key.
Make your pick here, and the rest of the guide will show only the steps for that app.
3Before you start
- A Claude account, the same login you use at
claude.ai(Claude Code needs a paid plan: Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise) - Admin rights on the computer you're using. Installing Claude and the connector can prompt for an administrator password, and a locked-down work machine without admin rights can fail partway through. If you're not sure you have them, check with your IT team before you start
- Homebrew is installed (
brew --versionworks in a terminal) - PowerShell (built into Windows, no extra install needed)
- You have a Foreman Intelligence login at
intelligence.foreman.mnwith permission to view the models you care about
4Install Claude
Claude Desktop is the standard Claude chat app, installed like any other program.
Claude Code is Claude in your terminal. One install command, then you sign in once.
- Download the macOS app from claude.ai/download.
- Open the downloaded
.dmgand drag Claude into your Applications folder. - Launch Claude from Applications and sign in with your Claude account.
- Download the Windows installer from claude.ai/download.
- Run the installer and follow the prompts.
- Launch Claude from the Start menu and sign in with your Claude account.
Install it with Homebrew from a terminal:
brew install --cask claude-code
Confirm it installed correctly:
claude --version
Then run claude once. The first run opens a browser window to sign in with your Claude account.
Install it once from PowerShell:
irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex
Close and reopen PowerShell, then confirm it installed correctly:
claude --version
Then run claude once. The first run opens a browser window to sign in with your Claude account.
If Claude is already on this machine and signed in, skip straight to the next step.
5Install the connector
Claude reaches Foreman Intelligence through a small local program called MCP Toolbox, which speaks Looker's API on Claude's behalf. Both Claude apps use this same connector.
Install it once from a terminal:
brew install mcp-toolbox
Confirm it installed correctly:
toolbox --version
Download the connector once from PowerShell:
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\mcp-toolbox" | Out-Null
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v1.10.0/windows/amd64/toolbox.exe" `
-OutFile "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\mcp-toolbox\toolbox.exe"
Confirm it downloaded correctly:
& "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\mcp-toolbox\toolbox.exe" --version
Windows may flag the file the first time because it was downloaded from the internet. That's expected for this tool. Click More info → Run anyway, or right-click the file → Properties → check Unblock.
6Get your Looker API credentials
Claude needs its own API key tied to your account, separate from your normal login password.
- Sign in to intelligence.foreman.mn
- Open your account menu → Account Settings
- Go to the Authentication section and click Manage to configure your API key.
- Click Create a new API key and save the Client ID and Client Secret shown.
If you don't have the option to manage API keys, your account doesn't have the appropriate permissions. Contact support if you think this is an error.
Anyone with your Client ID and Secret can query Foreman Intelligence as you. Don't paste it into Slack, a shared doc, or a public repo. If it's ever exposed, delete the key from Account Settings and generate a new one.
7Connect Claude
Now tell Claude how to reach the connector.
Claude Code terminal
One command does the whole thing, no file editing needed. Run this from anywhere, with your real values from Step 6 in place of the two placeholders:
claude mcp add looker-toolbox --scope user \
--env LOOKER_BASE_URL=https://intelligence.foreman.mn \
--env LOOKER_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id \
--env LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret \
--env LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL=true \
-- /opt/homebrew/bin/toolbox --stdio --prebuilt looker
If you ever need to check or fix it later, the entry lives in ~/.claude.json under "mcpServers" and should look like:
"looker-toolbox": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/toolbox",
"args": ["--stdio", "--prebuilt", "looker"],
"env": {
"LOOKER_BASE_URL": "https://intelligence.foreman.mn",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
"LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL": "true"
}
}
One command does the whole thing, no file editing needed. Run this from PowerShell, with your real values from Step 6 in place of the two placeholders:
claude mcp add looker-toolbox --scope user `
--env LOOKER_BASE_URL=https://intelligence.foreman.mn `
--env LOOKER_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id `
--env LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret `
--env LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL=true `
-- "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\mcp-toolbox\toolbox.exe" --stdio --prebuilt looker
If you ever need to check or fix it later, the entry lives in %USERPROFILE%\.claude.json under "mcpServers" and should look like this, with your-username being your Windows account name (note the doubled backslashes JSON needs in the path):
"looker-toolbox": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "C:\\Users\\your-username\\AppData\\Local\\mcp-toolbox\\toolbox.exe",
"args": ["--stdio", "--prebuilt", "looker"],
"env": {
"LOOKER_BASE_URL": "https://intelligence.foreman.mn",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
"LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL": "true"
}
}
Claude Code can edit its own config. Run claude and ask it to add the looker-toolbox MCP server entry shown above to your user-scope MCP config. Then open the file in a text editor and type in your real Client ID and Secret yourself. Don't paste the secret into the chat.
One note on the command above: the secret ends up in your shell history on this machine. It's the same secret that sits in the config file anyway, but clear the history entry if that bothers you.
Restart any open Claude Code session for the change to take effect.
Claude Desktop app
Open Settings → Developer → Edit Config, which opens claude_desktop_config.json
(at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/at %APPDATA%\Claude\) in a text editor.
What you do next depends on what's already in the file:
-
The file is empty, or contains only
{}(most people): replace the entire contents with the block below, then swap in your real Client ID and Secret from Step 6. -
The file already lists other servers under
"mcpServers": don't paste the whole block. Add just the"looker-toolbox": { ... }entry inside your existing"mcpServers"section, next to the servers already there, with a comma between entries. -
The file has other settings in it but no
"mcpServers"section: don't replace what's there, and don't guess where the new section belongs. Skip to Let Claude do the merge below and have Claude combine your existing file with the block for you.
{
"mcpServers": {
"looker-toolbox": {
"command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/toolbox",
"args": ["--stdio", "--prebuilt", "looker"],
"env": {
"LOOKER_BASE_URL": "https://intelligence.foreman.mn",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
"LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL": "true"
}
}
}
}
Three things to replace in this block, not two: your-username in the "command" path has to be your Windows account name (run whoami in PowerShell and use the part after the backslash), plus the Client ID and Secret. Keep the doubled backslashes.
{
"mcpServers": {
"looker-toolbox": {
"command": "C:\\Users\\your-username\\AppData\\Local\\mcp-toolbox\\toolbox.exe",
"args": ["--stdio", "--prebuilt", "looker"],
"env": {
"LOOKER_BASE_URL": "https://intelligence.foreman.mn",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
"LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
"LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL": "true"
}
}
}
}
If editing JSON by hand isn't your thing, let Claude write the file for you. Copy your config file's current contents into a Claude chat along with the block above and ask: "Merge this looker-toolbox server into my Claude Desktop config and give me back the complete file." Paste the result back into the file.
Then add your real Client ID and Secret directly in the text editor, not in the chat. The secret shouldn't go into a conversation, so leave the placeholders in place until the merged file is saved.
Save the file, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop. Closing the window isn't enough; Claude Desktop only reads this file when it starts.
8Verify it's working
Claude Desktop only reads its config file when it starts, so the connection won't appear until you fully quit and reopen the app. Use Claude → Quit Claude from the menu bar (or ⌘Q).Right-click the Claude icon in the system tray and choose Quit. Closing the window isn't enough. This is the step people most often skip, and it's the usual reason Claude says it has no Looker tools.
Claude Code only reads its MCP config when a session starts. If a claude session was already open when you ran the command in Step 7, type /exit and start a new one before you test.
Open a new conversation in Claude Desktop and ask something low-stakes, like:
Start a new claude session in your terminal (you can also type /mcp there to confirm looker-toolbox is listed as connected) and ask something low-stakes, like:
- What Explores do I have access to in Foreman Intelligence?
If Claude lists back real model and explore names, the connection is live. If it says it has no such tool, see Troubleshooting below.
9Ask for a dashboard
Once connected, describe what you want rather than how to build it. A few examples people actually use:
- Build a dashboard called "Fleet Uptime" showing GPU node availability by rack over the last 90 days.
- Add a tile to the Ops Overview dashboard breaking down ticket volume by priority.
- Make a Look of monthly recurring revenue by customer segment, filtered to this fiscal year.
- What dimensions does the shipments explore have? I want to slice by carrier.
Claude will usually run a query first and show you the numbers before saving anything as a Look or dashboard, so you can redirect it before it commits to a structure. Once it saves something, it can hand you the direct link.
10Deleting what Claude built
The connector deliberately can't delete anything. It ships tools to create, update, and query Looks and dashboards, but none to remove them. So when you want something gone, you take care of it yourself in Foreman Intelligence:
- If you're not sure which Look or dashboard Claude made, ask it for the exact name and a link.
- To remove a whole Look or dashboard, open it, open its menu (the three dots), and choose Move to Trash.
- To remove a single tile or filter, open the dashboard, choose Edit dashboard, use that tile's or filter's own menu to delete it, then save.
Anything you trash this way can be recovered by an admin, so a mistaken click isn't the end of the world.
There's an optional add-on that gives the connector a small set of delete tools, so you can say "delete the Old Ops Overview dashboard" and Claude handles it. It lives in its own guide because it takes a bit more config editing and the deletes it enables are permanent, with no trash to recover from. Most people never need it. If you do, follow Adding Delete Support to Claude once everything above is working.
11Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause |
|---|---|
claude: command not found |
The install didn't finish, or the terminal was opened before the install. Close and reopen your terminal, then try claude --version again |
| Claude says it has no Looker/dashboard tools | Claude wasn't fully quit and reopened after the config change (closing the window isn't enough), the file wasn't saved first, or the JSON has a syntax error (check for a missing comma) |
invalid_client or authentication error |
Client ID/Secret was mistyped, or the API3 key was deleted in Account Settings |
| Claude can query but can't see an Explore you expect | Your Foreman Intelligence account doesn't have model access to it. Ask your Looker admin, not Claude |
toolbox: command not found |
Homebrew install didn't finish, or the path isn't /opt/homebrew/bin/toolbox. Run which toolbox and update the config's command to match |
toolbox.exe is not recognized |
The download didn't finish, or the path in the config doesn't match where you saved it. Run Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\mcp-toolbox\toolbox.exe" to confirm |
The connector runs locally on your machine and only forwards requests you (via Claude) ask it to make. Nothing about your prompts or Foreman Intelligence data is sent anywhere except between Claude, this local process, and your Foreman Intelligence instance.
Questions or issues with this setup should go to whoever administers Foreman Intelligence access on your team.
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