snowflake-explore

Snowflake Explore

Discover and understand the data landscape in a Snowflake account.

When to use

• User asks "what data is available", "show me the tables", "what databases exist"
• User wants to inspect a table's columns, types, or sample data
• User needs to find a table by name or pattern

Discovery patterns

List databases:

SHOW DATABASES;

List schemas in a database:

SHOW SCHEMAS IN DATABASE my_db;

List tables in a schema:

SHOW TABLES IN SCHEMA my_db.my_schema;

Find tables by name pattern:

SHOW TABLES LIKE '%order%' IN ACCOUNT;

Describe a table (columns and types):

DESCRIBE TABLE my_db.my_schema.orders;

Full column metadata:

SELECT column_name, data_type, is_nullable, column_default
FROM my_db.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE table_schema = 'MY_SCHEMA' AND table_name = 'ORDERS'
ORDER BY ordinal_position;

Preview data (always use LIMIT):

SELECT * FROM my_db.my_schema.orders LIMIT 5;

Find views:

SHOW VIEWS IN SCHEMA my_db.my_schema;

Find dynamic tables:

SHOW DYNAMIC TABLES IN SCHEMA my_db.my_schema;

Find stages (file storage):

SHOW STAGES IN SCHEMA my_db.my_schema;

Find streams (change tracking):

SHOW STREAMS IN SCHEMA my_db.my_schema;

Tips

• SHOW commands accept LIKE patterns: SHOW TABLES LIKE '%customer%'
• Use IN ACCOUNT to search across all databases (requires privileges)
• Snowflake identifiers are case-insensitive unless double-quoted
• INFORMATION_SCHEMA requires uppercase for filter values