Self-host Metabase in France, with its PostgreSQL database, from your AI agent

Prerequisites

• A new Metabase instance, or the database of a current instance.
• Your AI agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or Gemini CLI.

Step 1: Ask your agent for Metabase

Your agent adds while’s MCP server itself. If it asks you to, restart it. On the first call to while, a page opens in your browser. In Claude Code, if it doesn’t open, type /mcp, choose while, then Authenticate. On that page, choose “A new app”, then click Authorize.

Step 2: Create your Metabase account

Your agent gives you the address of your Metabase, for example https://metabase.while.cloud. The first startup takes about five minutes. You then create the admin account there, then your first questions.

What your agent does

It deploys the official Metabase image, without a Dockerfile³, with this while.yaml:

apiVersion: while/v1
project: metabase
services:
  - name: web
    image: docker.io/metabase/metabase:latest
    port: 3000
    health:
      path: /api/health
      startup_timeout_seconds: 600
    command: ["sh", "-c", "MB_DB_TYPE=postgres MB_DB_CONNECTION_URI=\"$DATABASE_URL\" MB_JETTY_PORT=$PORT exec /app/run_metabase.sh"]
    scale:
      min: 1
      max: 1
    resources:
      cpu: 2000m
      memory: 1536Mi
databases:
  - name: main
    pool: session

Metabase keeps its settings, its questions and its dashboards in the PostgreSQL database¹. The startup command gives it that database’s address and its port^1,2. Three settings can’t be guessed, and without them Metabase doesn’t start:

• pool: session, on the database. Metabase’s migrations take a lock that needs to keep the same connection to the database. Without this line, Metabase stops at startup.
• startup_timeout_seconds: 600. On its first startup, Metabase prepares its database for about three minutes. Without this line, while withdraws the version after 120 seconds.
• memory: 1536Mi. Metabase is a Java app: with the default memory, it falls over.

Two CPUs make startup shorter, and a single instance is enough: it fits within the Free plan’s CPU quota. If your agent leaves out one of these settings, show it this guide.

Connect Metabase to your app’s database

Your agent gives Metabase read-only access to your app’s database, even when it sits in another project of your organization. Metabase reads, and can never write.

Restrict Metabase to your colleagues

Your agent adds two lines to the service:

    access: internal
    email_domains: [acme.com]

Once your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is connected to while, on the Pro plan, your colleagues sign in with their usual account, then with Metabase’s own sign-in.

Move to your own domain

Your agent declares the domain, you add the DNS records it gives you, and the HTTPS certificate follows.

Upgrade to the latest version of Metabase

Your agent deploys the latest Metabase image. If the new version disappoints, it rolls back to the previous one.

Put Metabase back the way it was yesterday

Your agent prepares the restore, and you approve it: a safety backup is taken first, then the database goes back to the moment you asked for.

In the docs: PostgreSQL databases, Internal access, Custom domain and Prebuilt image.

Next steps

• Restore your database to a precise moment
• Restrict an internal tool to company accounts
• Deploy a Docker container