Mastering AI Cost and Access: The Imperative of Governance for Snowflake Cortex Code

Snowflake Cortex Code brings LLMs like GPT and Claude directly into the data cloud, but unrestricted access can cause runaway costs. This post presents a production-ready SQL governance script that enforces a tiered RBAC model with three roles (Standard, Enhanced, Premium), assigns specific LLM models to each tier, and applies per-user daily credit limits using Snowflake Scripting. The approach follows a default-deny stance, disabling global model access and requiring explicit role grants. Concrete use cases map each tier to real-world personas: junior analysts on cost-efficient models, senior engineers on advanced reasoning models, and architects with unlimited access to top-tier models.