The Atlan MCP Cookbook

Route data requests to right assets

Surface certified, well-documented assets in response to a business request.

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On the menu

Use case
Find & understand data
Action
Look up
Persona
Data/BI Analyst, Data Governance Lead
Effort
Quick
Runs in
any AI tool

The task

Scenario. A stakeholder wants to build a monthly churn analysis and asks for "the churn data." What they need is the right certified table with an owner and an explanation, not a raw list of every table with "churn" in the name. You want to read the request as business concepts and return what is ready to use.

The ask

  • The request stated as business concepts
  • The most relevant certified tables or dashboards
  • Who owns each and what it contains

Hero prompt

Hero prompt

A business stakeholder needs data to build a monthly churn analysis. Find the most relevant certified tables or dashboards in Atlan, show who owns them, and explain what each one contains.

Step by step

  1. Search for certified assets that match the request.

    Step 1

    A stakeholder needs data for a <monthly churn analysis> — find the most relevant certified tables or dashboards.

  2. Pull ownership and access for the top matches.

    Step 2

    For each, show who owns it and how to get access.

  3. Return a ranked shortlist with a plain-English explanation of each.

    Step 3

    Rank them by fit and explain what each one contains.

What you'll give it

Required context

  • The business request, as concepts (a monthly churn analysis)

Optional context

  • Any constraint: certified only, a specific domain, or a freshness bar
  • The requester's access, so you can flag what they can already use

What Atlan creates

Outputs

  • A ranked list of certified tables and dashboards that fit the request
  • The owner of each (usually a team), and how to get access
  • A plain explanation of what each contains

Summary. A vague ask returns a short, trustworthy shortlist instead of a raw table dump, so the requester starts from certified data and the "which table?" thread ends before it starts.

Read-only

Nothing is written. This recipe searches and reads metadata to answer the request; nothing in Atlan changes.

Follow-up prompts

Keep going once the first answer lands.

Narrow it

Narrow it

Of these, which single table would you start with for a monthly churn analysis, and why?

Fill the gap

Fill the gap

If nothing certified fully fits, tell me what's missing so I can request or build it.

Hand it off

Hand it off

Draft a short reply to the stakeholder listing the recommended asset, its owner, and how to get access.

Tips & troubleshooting

Cook's note

Point people at certified assets. It's the fastest way to end the "which table?" Slack threads.

  • Match the tool to the work. Use any AI tool; the recipe reads and recommends, so it is safe to run for any incoming request.
  • Automate or chain it. Put it behind a request form or Slack channel, so every "I need data for X" gets a certified shortlist back automatically.
  • It only reads. No writes, so route as many requests through it as you like without touching a single asset.
THE ATLAN MCP COOKBOOK

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