Ask the Data

Most SQL courses teach you to write queries. This one teaches you to trust them.

• An agent will write most of your SQL now, so the scarce skill is no longer typing it - it is reading, auditing, and directing SQL that something else wrote.
• A wrong number that looks right is worse than an error: an error stops, a wrong number ships.
• You learn it in two halves: first write SQL by hand, because you cannot audit what you cannot read, then bring in an agent and learn the loop that makes its answers safe to use.
• Your coding agent teaches the whole course, step by step. These pages are a companion - read along, or use them for reference.

How it works

The course is taught by your agent, not by these pages. Four steps to start:

1. Install a coding agent or AI IDE. Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor - any one works.

2. Copy this prompt and paste it to your agent. It sets up your learning environment: installs what it needs, builds a small local practice database, and hands you the controls.

3. Learn the concepts, then say next lesson. The agent teaches each lesson and asks a few quiz questions to check you followed. When you have it, tell it next lesson to move on.

4. Do the task, then say review my work. Most lessons set a hands-on task, usually a query to write yourself. Do it by hand, then ask the agent to review it - it runs your work, checks it against a rubric, and tells you what to fix.

That loop is the whole point: the agent does the work, and you check it.

It is terminal-first on purpose. An agent works with a warehouse by writing SQL and running commands, so learning in the same place is what lets you read and direct it. You will use Bruin and DuckDB, but the ideas transfer to dbt, Dataform, or any SQL framework.