Read time: ~5 minutes · Series: Platform Admin (Data Engineering) onboarding · Previous: Where Lantide sits in the data architecture · Next: External database connections
A single division-of-labor table
| Task | Platform Admin (Data Engineering) | Analyst | Business / Operations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mount external DB connections | ✅ Owner | Uses | — |
| Set the workspace data directory | ✅ Owner | Uses | — |
Workspace / machine-swap .lantide |
✅ Owner | Raises the request | — |
| MCP source setup (if used) | ✅ Owner | Explores materialized tables | — |
| External Agent connections and permissions | ✅ Sets scope / mode, Rotate / Revoke | Raises analysis needs, accepts artifacts | Reviews Plan, accepts Report |
| Plan / Execute / Report | — | ✅ Owner | Reviews Plan, accepts Report |
| External number definitions | — | Produces | Annotates, signs off |
In small teams one person may wear several hats; a role is a function, not a job title.
When they should come to you
Analysts or PMs often need you in these situations:
- "I need to connect to the test database, but I don't have connection access"
- "I'm switching laptops—how do I move the projects and Plans"
- "After importing the workspace all the tables are grayed out and unqueryable" → usually a matter of Rebinding the folder or not having Reconnected
- "I want to hook up an MCP data source" → you Test / Add first, then the analyst Scans / materializes
- "I want to use Cursor, Codex, or Claude to operate Lantide" → you configure Agent Integration; use Observe the first time, and prefer Single workspace + Execute for formal analysis
MCP Sources is Lantide reaching out to fetch data; Agent Integration is an external Agent connecting into Lantide. The two differ in where they're configured, their permissions, and how they're recovered—see External Agent Integration.
When not to take on everything
- Don't review the Plan's definitions for the analyst (unless you're also acting as the business side)
- Don't manually copy the entire
workspaces/folder as an official migration—use the.lantidebundle instead (see Export and import) - Don't press Execute for everyone by default
See the team-size table in PM: Who should adopt.
One thing you can do right now
Align with the analysis owner: for connection and folder changes, who requests, who executes, and who verifies that tables are queryable—three lines in the team wiki is enough.