Getting started

honest-agent asks your analytics agent questions you know the answers to, through the agent’s own MCP server, and checks each answer for accuracy (is it right?) and provenance (did the agent’s SQL read the tables it should?).

What you need

• uv. It installs Python for you if needed (honest-agent needs 3.10 or later).
• A model API key. honest-agent plays your agent with an AI model you choose: the model reads each question, decides which of your agent’s tools to call, and writes the answer. Some grading methods use a model too. You pay the model provider for those calls, so you need an API key: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY for Claude (console.anthropic.com) or OPENAI_API_KEY for GPT (platform.openai.com). These are API keys, separate from a claude.ai or ChatGPT subscription.
• Your agent’s MCP server: its URL and a token, or the command that starts it locally. To try honest-agent before connecting it, the example brings its own demo agent and sample database. It shows how honest-agent works, not how your agent does: for that, you need your agent’s server.

1. Install

Create a folder for your evals and install honest-agent into it:

mkdir my-agent-evals && cd my-agent-evals
uv init --bare --python 3.11
uv add "honest-agent @ git+https://github.com/jlcoto/the_honest_agent.git@v0.1.0#subdirectory=cli"

To upgrade later, run the same uv add with a newer tag from Releases.

Alpha

honest-agent is in alpha: expect breaking changes between versions. Each release’s notes in the changelog say what changed and what to do.

2. Try the example (optional)

To see how a run works before connecting your own agent, try it on sample data:

uv run honest-agent init --example

It asks which model provider to use, then creates honest-agent-example/: a demo agent over DuckDB’s TPC-H sample data, with six evals. Some fail on purpose, and its README.md says which ones and why. Then:

cd honest-agent-example
# add your API key to .env, e.g. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
uv run honest-agent run       # a few cents with the example's model
uv run honest-agent report
uv run honest-agent serve     # opens the report in your browser (Ctrl+C to stop)

The demo MCP server is for trying honest-agent only, not for real data.

3. Create the starter files

Back in your project folder:

uv run honest-agent init

init asks a few questions with numbered options and defaults (Enter accepts them):

• which MCP server your agent uses: Snowflake’s managed MCP server, MotherDuck, another URL, or a local command;
• its URL, or the command that starts it;
• which model provider runs the agent: Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI;
• where results live: on your machine, in MotherDuck, or in a file in S3. Not sure? Keep the default, your machine; Storing results compares the three.

The target is named after the server (snowflake, motherduck, …); --target-name chooses another name. Then it writes three files, and never overwrites one that exists:

File	What it holds
honest_agent_config.yml	One target for your agent, like a target in a dbt profile
evals/first_eval.yml	A first eval to fill in
.env	The variables the setup needs: your server’s URL, and empty slots for the keys

Every answer is also a flag, for scripts and CI. For example:

uv run honest-agent init --server snowflake --mcp-url https://... --no-input

honest-agent init --help lists them all.

If the project is in git, add .env and honest_agent_report/ to .gitignore; init lists whatever isn’t ignored yet. The results folder keeps itself out of git.

With a coding agent

At the end, init asks whether to continue the setup with a coding agent (yes by default). If you say yes, it adds a setup skill, in the open Agent Skills format, to .agents/skills/ (read by Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI and others) and .claude/skills/ (Claude Code).

Open your coding agent in the project and ask it to set up honest-agent. It helps you connect your MCP server and write your first evals, and asks before anything that costs money. To add the skill later, or update it after upgrading honest-agent, run honest-agent init --with-skill.

Caution

Never paste tokens or keys into a coding agent’s chat. They go in .env, which you fill in yourself.

4. Fill in .env

init wrote the variable names your setup needs. Add the values:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...        # or OPENAI_API_KEY=...
SNOWFLAKE_MCP_URL=...        # your MCP server's URL
SNOWFLAKE_MCP_TOKEN=...      # its token

Only secrets and account URLs go here. The config reads them with {{ env_var('SNOWFLAKE_MCP_URL') }}, the way dbt does, so honest_agent_config.yml holds no account details and you can commit it to share targets with your team. Connect your agent covers the other settings.

Give the MCP server read-only credentials

honest-agent runs your agent with every tool its MCP server offers, and the agent reads your data, which can contain text written as instructions. honest-agent blocks SQL that changes data: only reads (select, show, describe, use) reach the server. But it can only check SQL. If the server has other tools that change things, such as one that deletes a customer, honest-agent can’t block them. Read-only credentials can.

5. Write your first eval

Open evals/first_eval.yml and replace each TODO: a question your agent should answer from your data, the answer you know is right, and the tables it should read. For example:

    tests:
      - id: revenue_q4
        title: Revenue in Q4 2026
        prompt: What was our revenue in Q4 2026, net of discounts and before tax?
        expected_answer: "307992639.49"
        provenance:
          expected_sources: [lineitem, warehouse.main.orders]

expected_answer checks accuracy. expected_sources checks provenance: that the SQL the agent ran actually read those tables. Writing evals explains the grading methods and how to choose the questions.

6. Check the setup, then run

uv run honest-agent debug

debug checks the config, the variables, the evals, the connection to the MCP server and the results store, without calling a model or running a query. Fix whatever it reports, then run.

Each run costs money

Every eval calls the model, and you pay the model provider for those calls. The cost depends on the model, how many steps the agent takes for each question, and whether the grading method calls a model too. Check your provider’s prices (Anthropic, OpenAI) and start with one eval: uv run honest-agent run --select <id>. The report shows the tokens each eval used, so you can estimate the rest. Your warehouse may also charge for the queries the agent runs.

uv run honest-agent run       # runs every eval against the default target
uv run honest-agent report    # writes the report to honest_agent_report/
uv run honest-agent serve     # opens it in your browser (Ctrl+C to stop)

run exits with code 1 when any eval falls below its threshold, like a failing test. Running evals covers selecting evals, reading the logs and running in CI.

Your results contain what the agent saw

The results file (honest_agent_results/results.duckdb) keeps everything each run sent and received, and the report holds the agent’s conversations. That includes what its tools returned: query results (possibly customer rows, names or emails), table listings, and error messages that can name accounts and roles. Access tokens are never stored. Treat both like the data your agent can query, and keep them out of git.

Next

• Writing evals: what to test and how to grade it.
• The report: reading the results.
• Running it for a team: runs in CI, a hosted report and Slack alerts.