Skip to content

[Enhancement]: Let aggregate_records (MCP) compute multiple aggregations in one call (single GROUP BY pass) #3725

Description

@flyfish4649

Is your feature request related to a problem?

The MCP aggregate_records tool accepts only one aggregate per call (function + field). To retrieve several metrics over the same grouping, a client must issue N separate calls, each generating its own query with the same GROUP BY:

SELECT region, SUM(amount) FROM dbo.Sales WHERE ... GROUP BY region
SELECT region, AVG(amount) FROM dbo.Sales WHERE ... GROUP BY region
SELECT region, SUM(cost)   FROM dbo.Sales WHERE ... GROUP BY region

This scans the same rows and recomputes the same GROUP BY N times, plus N× query-planning / result-shaping / round-trip overhead. On large tables/views this is a real, avoidable database cost. Issuing the N calls concurrently on the client side only reduces latency — it does not reduce total DB work and can increase peak load/contention.

Describe the solution you'd like

Allow aggregate_records to accept multiple aggregations in a single call, producing one SELECT with one GROUP BY pass, e.g.:

{
  "entity": "Sales",
  "aggregations": [
    { "function": "sum", "field": "amount", "alias": "sum_amount" },
    { "function": "avg", "field": "amount", "alias": "avg_amount" },
    { "function": "sum", "field": "cost",   "alias": "sum_cost" }
  ],
  "groupby": ["region"],
  "orderby": ["sum_amount desc"]
}

which maps to a single query:

SELECT region, SUM(amount) AS sum_amount, AVG(amount) AS avg_amount, SUM(cost) AS sum_cost
FROM dbo.Sales
WHERE ...
GROUP BY region

orderby/having should be able to reference the aggregate aliases (e.g. sum_amount), consistent with how grouped results are projected.

Why this looks feasible

DAB already builds multi-aggregation queries internally for GraphQL: the shared SqlQueryStructure.GroupByMetadata.Aggregations is a List<AggregationOperation> and BaseTSqlQueryBuilder.BuildAggregationColumns(...) emits all requested aggregate expressions into a single SELECT. The MCP aggregate_records tool (AggregateRecordsTool) currently parses and loads only a single AggregationOperation. Extending its argument parsing to accept an array and pushing multiple AggregationOperations onto the existing structure would reuse the machinery GraphQL already relies on.

Backward compatibility

Keep the current single-metric form (function + field) working as-is; add the new optional aggregations array alongside it. Single-metric callers are unaffected; multi-metric callers opt in.

Additional context

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Type

    No type

    Fields

    No fields configured for issues without a type.

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions