Query the repository from Claude Code, Cursor and other MCP clients. Plan SQL Agent start times, and mark the hours jobs should stay out of. Deploy community tools from DBA Dash.

MCP server

An MCP server lets Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code and Windsurf query the repository with their own model. The tools are read-only. They use the same summaries as the AI Assistant, plus a deadlock, a query plan or an instance’s performance. DBA Dash does not call a model, so no AI provider is required for this.

Options > Connect AI Tools (MCP) registers DBADashMCP.exe with the tools installed on the machine. The exe ships beside the GUI. It connects with the saved GUI connection, as you, and needs the McpUser role (or db_owner). The AI service can serve the same tools at /mcp.

An Ask button beside AI Analysis hands the open deadlock, the plan statement, or the instance on the Performance tab to one of those tools. See MCP server.

You can also start from the tool itself. In Cursor, ask about an instance and it reads the repository through the server you registered.

Job timeline - Planning

Plan mode on the job timeline shows where SQL Agent jobs overlap and lets you try start times that keep them apart. Suggest Start Times looks for smaller overlaps. You can also type a move, or drag a run to move the schedule that started it. Script Changes writes one script. Set @Rollback to 1 to undo it. Nothing is run on the server from the timeline.

A job that shares a schedule gets its own copy, so its start time can move without the other jobs. Move All keeps the shared schedule and moves those jobs together.

Runs that are too close together at the current zoom are drawn as a band. Zoom in to see each run. Expected durations come from the runs a schedule started.

Busy hours

Busy hours are the parts of the week you would rather keep free of jobs, such as weekdays 9:00–17:00. Suggest Start Times keeps jobs out of them when Keep Out of Busy Hours is on, which it is by default. That only applies to a job whose runs can fit outside. A job that runs every minute is left as it is. Dragging a run does not avoid the period.

They can be set for one instance, a tag, or every instance. The most specific level that has any rows is the one used, so an instance can be the exception to its tag. The timeline shades them, and plan mode counts the runs that fall inside. Busy Hours… opens the editor. A new period defaults to weekdays 08:00–18:00.

Community tools

DBA Dash can deploy and update the community tools it runs: the First Responder Kit, DarlingData, sp_WhoIsActive and Kenneth Fisher’s permission scripts. Each build pins a release. The scripts are fetched when you deploy them. They are not shipped in the installer.

The test for a pinned release is that it deploys and that the version can be read from the procedure definition. The procedures are not executed. A newer upstream release is given the same check on SQL Server 2022 before the pin moves. That is a check of the deploy, not of what the tool does when you run it.

Community Tools is on the service config tool, beside Permissions Helper, and Deploy Tools… is beside Allowed Scripts. Pick the tools and the instances, check what is installed, then deploy. The connection is yours, not the service account. Afterwards the dialog can add the tools to Allowed Scripts and open the Permissions Helper to grant EXECUTE.

Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution

The same dialog can deploy Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution: CommandExecute, DatabaseBackup, DatabaseIntegrityCheck and IndexOptimize, plus the CommandLog, Queue and QueueDatabase tables. No Agent jobs are created. DBA Dash does not run these procedures, so they are not selected by default and are not added to Allowed Scripts.

A procedure is replaced only when its definition is Ola’s. A copy that does not match a known release is Modified and is left alone. When parameters change, Agent job steps that call the procedure are checked, and a job that would break blocks the update. The procedures are updated as a set. A rollback script is written before anything is replaced.

AI analysis

Performance analysis now includes running queries and tempdb, and deadlocks over the same window. The model can ask for a few lookups before it answers: root blockers, queries waiting on a wait type, long-running queries, and one deadlock signature. The lookups use the same procedures as the MCP tools. A checkbox on the dialog turns them on. See AI Assistant.

Masking applies to the built-in AI service as well. AI.DataDetail is the minimum. A request can mask more, never less.

Query plans

Comparing two plans defaults to every statement when a plan has more than one. Times, reads, costs and counts are totalled, so a procedure rewritten into several statements can be compared as a whole. Comparing two statements inside one plan is unchanged. See Compare plans.

The XML editor has find (Ctrl+F).

View Operator XML on an operator shows that operator’s showplan XML.

Live plan capture skips a statement that has only just started. The CPU and duration thresholds are on the request, which can span many statements. The current statement is bounded by the transaction start (and DOP for CPU) and is left until it can meet the threshold.

Also in this release

• Log shipping treats a RECOVERING secondary database as present when it has a recent restore. A database that exists on the secondary but is not restoring or standby is Conflict (Critical). The detail grid adds Create Date and Database Age.
• Add Connections can open the Permissions Helper for connections that could not connect, and masks passwords in the connections box. The helper grants EXECUTE on the First Responder Kit procedures that sp_Blitz version-checks, where those procedures exist. A name such as . or localhost is resolved to the service’s host.
• Object execution stats aggregate in stages, and the Performance tab charts load off the UI thread. A chart shows Loading… once a load has run for half a second.
• A LiveCharts drawing surface that did not match its canvas is fitted and redrawn, so a chart is not left on empty axes.
• Concurrent inserts of the same query text no longer violate PK_QueryText.
• In local mode the AI service only answers a request whose host is a loopback name.

Bug fixes & minor changes

See the release notes on GitHub for the full list:

• 4.24.0