Claude Desktop brings Anthropic's AI directly to your Mac or Windows machine as a native app. When you connect it to your PostgreSQL database through Sequel's MCP server, the chat window becomes a live interface into your data. Type a question, get an answer backed by real data.
This guide takes you from zero to querying your PostgreSQL database inside Claude Desktop in about ten minutes.
What You'll Accomplish
After completing this setup, you'll be able to ask questions like these directly in Claude Desktop:
- "What's our monthly active user count for the last 6 months?"
- "Show me all orders that were refunded this week."
- "Which product categories have the highest average order value?"
Prerequisites
- A Sequel account: Sign up free at sequel.sh
- A running PostgreSQL database: local or cloud (RDS, Supabase, Neon, etc.)
- Claude Desktop installed: download from claude.ai/download
Step 1: Connect Your PostgreSQL Database to Sequel
Sign in to sequel.sh and click Data Sources in the left sidebar.
Click New Connection. On the "Choose a connector" page, select PostgreSQL.
Fill in two fields:
- Connection Name: a memorable label, e.g.
Analytics DB - Connection String: your full PostgreSQL connection string:
postgresql://username:password@host:5432/database_name
Click Connect. Sequel verifies the credentials and saves the connection.
Recommended: Create a dedicated read-only user before connecting:
CREATE USER sequel_reader WITH PASSWORD 'strong_password_here'; GRANT CONNECT ON DATABASE myapp TO sequel_reader; GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA public TO sequel_reader; GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO sequel_reader;Your connection string becomes:
postgresql://sequel_reader:strong_password_here@host:5432/myapp
Step 2: Get Your Sequel API Key
Click Settings in the left sidebar, then select API Keys from the settings navigation.
Click New key, name it claude-desktop, and copy the key. It starts with sql_.
Step 3: Configure Claude Desktop
Open or create the Claude Desktop config file:
- Mac:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json - Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Add the Sequel MCP server entry:
{
"mcpServers": {
"sequel": {
"url": "https://api.sequel.sh/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer sql_your_api_key"
}
}
}
}
Replace sql_your_api_key with the key from Step 2. Restart Claude Desktop after saving. MCP servers are loaded at startup.
To confirm Sequel loaded correctly, ask Claude: "What tools do you have access to?" You should see Sequel's tools listed.
Step 4: Query Your PostgreSQL Database
Start a new conversation in Claude Desktop:
How many new users registered in the past 30 days?
List the top 10 products by total revenue this quarter.
Are there any customers who placed orders but never completed a purchase?
Claude Desktop will call the Sequel MCP tools behind the scenes, run the query against your PostgreSQL database, and return the answer in the conversation.
What You Can Do Now
- Answer business questions on the fly: no need to open a SQL editor or ask an engineer
- Explore your schema: ask "What tables are in this database?" or "What columns does the orders table have?"
- Spot anomalies: ask "Are there any unusually large orders this week?" or "Show me users with duplicate accounts"
- Draft queries for your team: describe the report you need, review the SQL Claude generates, then hand it off