Review SQL Server execution plans through an MCP-compatible analysis workflow with Performance Studio

Use Performance Studio when an MCP-compatible agent needs to parse SQL Server .sqlplan files, surface performance warnings, inspect missing-index suggestions, and turn execution-plan evidence into a reviewable tuning workflow.

Prerequisites

Performance Studio via its built-in MCP server or CLI, plus SQL Server execution plan files or a reachable SQL Server environment.

Installation

Use the upstream install or setup path that matches your environment:

• git clone https://github.com/erikdarlingdata/PerformanceStudio.git
• docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=YourPassword123" \

Requirements and caveats from upstream:

• Each warning includes severity (Info, Warning, or Critical), the operator node ID, and enough context to act on immediately.
• Docker (optional — macOS/Linux users can run SQL Server locally via Docker)
• [Critical] Parallelism (Node 0): Estimated 1 rows, actual 2,889 (2889x underestimated).

Basic usage or getting-started notes:

• Missing indexes — extracts SQL Server's index suggestions with ready-to-run CREATE statements

• .NET 8 SDK (required to build and run)

• SQL Server instance (optional — only needed for live plan capture; file analysis works without one)

• Source: https://github.com/erikdarlingdata/PerformanceStudio

• Extracted from upstream docs: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/erikdarlingdata/PerformanceStudio/HEAD/README.md

Documentation

• https://github.com/erikdarlingdata/PerformanceStudio

Source

• Agent Skill Exchange