Making Sonnet 5 the CoCo default

TL/DR: Sonnet 5 is now the account-wide default model in CoCo. Setting it took a few SQL statements.

This is a really short one: I went looking for an option to not have ❄️ Snowflake automatically select the most capable (aka most expensive) model for CoCo. One, I find it quite annoying to always select a cheaper model from the dropdown (particularly in Snowsight where I forget it all the time), and two, I can't other users expect to even be aware of the cost factor at all. Then I stumbled upon this:

Configure default model settings | Snowflake Documentation

How Snowflake account administrators can configure a default model for all Cortex Code users in an account.

Snowflake Documentation

So I need a CORTEX_CODE database on my account, expecting a provisioning request to Snowflake support... at least that's what the docs implied. Turns out it's completely self-service: a database, a schema, and an agent object.

It's just a database

CORTEX_CODE wasn't provisioned yet on my account. No ticket needed though, CREATE DATABASE works like it does for any other object.

use role accountadmin;

create database if not exists cortex_code;
grant usage on database cortex_code to role public;

create schema if not exists cortex_code.config;
grant usage on schema cortex_code.config to role public;

Setting the default model

CoCo's default model lives on an agent object, cortex_code.config.default, specified the same way any Cortex Agent is: a YAML block passed to CREATE AGENT ... FROM SPECIFICATION.

create or replace agent cortex_code.config.default
from specification
$$
models:
  orchestration: claude-sonnet-5
$$;

grant usage on agent cortex_code.config.default to role public;

Settings are read at session startup, so the verification is just opening a fresh CoCo chat: the model selector lands on Sonnet 5 without anyone touching a dropdown now 🥳

Changing the default later is the same statement with alter instead of create or replace:

alter agent cortex_code.config.default
from specification
$$
models:
  orchestration: <model_name>
$$;