Forty-three things to ask for on day one

Base is a database your assistant can drive: tables, views, forms, webhooks, SQL. These are the sentences that make it do something useful. Copy one, paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, or whatever you already pay for, and edit the nouns.

All of them assume the connector is set up — that takes about a minute and there is no API key: connect Base to your assistant first. Nothing here needs a paid plan, and none of it burns AI credits, because the intelligence is the subscription you already have. Each prompt notes the tools it ends up calling, so you can see what your assistant is about to do before you approve it.

Copy adds one line under the prompt, so the words you paste point at Base rather than at whatever else your assistant can reach:

Do this in my Base workspace (bips.ai) with the Base tools over MCP. If they are not connected, tell me — the connector is https://bips.ai/mcp — rather than doing it somewhere else or answering from memory.

Build something from nothing

The fastest way to see what this is: describe a database in a sentence and let it get built.

• Build me a CRM in Base — companies, contacts and deals, linked to each other, with a stage select on deals and a currency field for value. Then add the six companies from the email below.create_base · create_table · create_column · create_row
• Set up an applicant tracker: one table for roles, one for candidates linked to a role, stage as a select, a rating column, and a notes field. Make the stages Applied, Screen, Onsite, Offer, Hired, Rejected.create_table · create_column
• I run a small landscaping business. Design the tables I'd need to track clients, jobs, and invoices, tell me what you're going to create, then create it once I say go.create_table · create_column
• Add a "Renewal date" date column and a "Health" select (Green, Amber, Red) to the Accounts table, and backfill Health as Green for every row that's blank.create_column · update_table
• Look at my Projects table and tell me which columns are the wrong type. Fix the ones that are clearly wrong and leave the judgement calls to me.get_table · update_column
• Make a table for my reading list with title, author, a rating out of 5, a status select, and the date I finished it. Add the twelve books in this photo.create_table · create_row

Get your existing data in

Spreadsheets, exports, a table you pasted into chat, or a whole Airtable base. CSV, TSV, JSON, NDJSON, XLSX and markdown tables all land the same way.

• Here's a CSV export. Import it into a new table, pick sensible column types instead of making everything text, and tell me what you chose.import_data
• Import this spreadsheet into Base, then show me the rows where the email column doesn't look like an email.import_data · run_query
• Append this month's export to the existing Orders table — don't create a new one, and match the columns that already exist.import_data
• List the Airtable bases my token can see, then copy the one called Operations into Base and tell me what didn't come across.list_airtable_bases · migrate_airtable
• Migrate my Airtable base, then compare the row counts table by table so I know the copy is complete before I cancel anything.migrate_airtable · run_query
• Take the table in this markdown block, put it in Base as "Q3 vendors", and dedupe it on company name as you go.import_data · list_rows · delete_row

Ask questions instead of scrolling

Every table is also a read-only SQL view, so a question about ten thousand rows costs one query rather than forty pages of context. Ask in English; your assistant writes the SQL.

• How many deals are in each stage, and what's the total value of the ones closing this month?run_query — one call, not forty pages of rows
• Which customers haven't ordered in ninety days? Give me the list with their last order date and total lifetime spend.run_query
• Chart my monthly signups for the last year, then tell me which month broke the trend and go look for why in the data.run_query
• Find duplicates in Contacts — same email or same phone, different rows — and show them side by side before you touch anything.run_query
• Join Invoices to Clients and show me everyone with more than £2,000 outstanding past due, worst first.run_query
• Give me a Monday-morning summary of the Projects table: what moved last week, what's overdue, what's unassigned.run_query · get_history
• What's actually in this base? Walk me through the tables, how they're linked, and anything that looks half-finished.list_tables · get_table

Everyday edits

The boring work — the reason you opened the spreadsheet in the first place.

• Move every deal that closed last week to Won, set the close date, and leave a comment on each one saying which invoice it belongs to.update_row · add_comment
• Read these meeting notes and update the matching rows in Deals. Tell me the ones you couldn't match confidently instead of guessing.list_rows · update_row
• Standardise the Country column — "US", "USA" and "United States" should all be one value. Show me the mapping first.run_query · update_row
• Duplicate last quarter's campaign row three times, one per region, and set the region and budget on each.duplicate_row · update_row
• Every row in Tasks with no owner and no due date is dead. Show me them, then archive the ones I confirm.run_query · delete_row
• Add a comment on the three highest-value open deals asking the owner for a next step.run_query · add_comment

Views for the humans

You still open Base in a browser. Ask for the view you'd have built by hand: grid, kanban, calendar, gallery, gantt, chart or list, with filters, sorting and grouping.

• Make a kanban of Deals grouped by stage, hide the internal columns, and sort each column by value descending.create_view
• Give me a calendar view of Tasks on the due date, filtered to just my rows and anything unassigned.create_view
• Build a gantt view of Projects from start to end date, and a chart view of hours by team next to it.create_view
• Set up the three views I'd want for a weekly review of this table, and tell me why each one exists.list_views · create_view

Forms that write straight into a table

Published forms, a public link, spam held for review, and a bucket mode that accepts a plain HTML <form method="POST"> from a site you already have.

• Make a contact form for the Contacts table, publish it publicly, and give me the link.create_form · publish_form
• Build an event signup form: name, email, a dietary-requirements field that only appears if they tick "attending dinner", and a thank-you page that greets them by name.create_form — conditional fields are formulas
• Turn on bucket mode for this form and give me the HTML to paste into my static site, so my own form posts into Base.update_form — FormBucket-style raw POST
• Anything come in through the signup form this week? Summarise it, and flag whatever looks like spam.list_submissions
• Show me everything the spam filter held. Release the real ones and leave the rest.list_submissions · release_submission
• Take this form offline until Monday, then remind me to publish it again.unpublish_form · publish_form

Webhooks and alerts

Rules that POST a signed payload when something happens — a row created, updated or deleted, a column changed, a form submitted or released. Failed deliveries retry for about fifteen hours, and you can read the log.

• Add a webhook that posts to this URL whenever a deal moves to Won, then send a test delivery so I can see the payload shape.create_automation · test_automation
• Wire form submissions to my Slack incoming webhook, and show me the signature header so I can verify it on my end.create_automation
• Something's wrong with my endpoint — show me the last few deliveries with their status codes and retry the ones that failed.list_deliveries · retry_delivery
• List every automation in this workspace, what fires it, and where it points. Turn off anything pointing at a URL I no longer own.list_automations · delete_automation

When it goes wrong

Every change is in a history tree, so the fix for a bad bulk edit is a sentence, not a restore ticket.

• The import doubled every row in Contacts. Undo it.undo
• Save a named version of this table before you start, called "before cleanup".save_version
• Who changed this row, and what did it say before? Walk me back through it.get_row_history
• Show me everything that changed in this table today and tell me if any of it looks accidental.get_history

Two habits worth forming

Ask for the plan before the writes. "Tell me what you're going to create, then do it once I say go" costs one extra turn and saves you an undo. Read-only tools run without interrupting you; anything that changes or deletes is marked destructive and your assistant asks first, but a plan is still cheaper than a rollback.

Say "in Base". If your assistant has several connectors, naming Base saves it guessing which one you meant — the copy button appends exactly that, and it is worth saying yourself when you type a prompt of your own rather than copying one.