Getting started with business context in the Data Catalog

This tutorial walks you through creating a glossary, tagging assets, and using semantic search to discover data by meaning.

Prerequisites

Attach the following IAM policy to grant the required permissions:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [{
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
            "glue:SearchAssets", "glue:PutAsset", "glue:GetAsset", "glue:DeleteAsset",
            "glue:PutAssetType", "glue:GetAssetType", "glue:DeleteAssetType", "glue:ListAssetTypes",
            "glue:CreateGlossary", "glue:UpdateGlossary", "glue:GetGlossary", "glue:ListGlossaries", "glue:DeleteGlossary",
            "glue:CreateGlossaryTerm", "glue:UpdateGlossaryTerm", "glue:GetGlossaryTerm", "glue:ListGlossaryTerms", "glue:DeleteGlossaryTerm",
            "glue:AssociateGlossaryTerms", "glue:DisassociateGlossaryTerms",
            "glue:PutFormType", "glue:GetFormType", "glue:DeleteFormType", "glue:ListFormTypes",
            "glue:PutAttachment", "glue:DeleteAttachment",
            "glue:ListIterableForms", "glue:BatchGetIterableForms"
        ],
        "Resource": "*"
    }]
}

Step 1: Create a glossary and tag an asset

To create a glossary

Run the following command:

aws glue create-glossary \
  --name "Enterprise Data Glossary" \
  --description "Standardized business definitions for enterprise data assets."

Example output:

{
    "Id": "d7xm3np5rk2w9j",
    "Name": "Enterprise Data Glossary"
}

To create a glossary term

Replace the glossary identifier with the Id from the preceding output.

aws glue create-glossary-term \
  --glossary-identifier "d7xm3np5rk2w9j" \
  --name "Active User" \
  --short-description "A user with at least one login in the last 30 days." \
  --long-description "An account that has logged in at least once within the trailing 30-day window."

Example output:

{
    "Id": "c2fymbu18rtsx5",
    "GlossaryId": "d7xm3np5rk2w9j",
    "Name": "Active User"
}

To associate the term with an asset

Run the following command:

aws glue associate-glossary-terms \
  --asset-identifier "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/mydb/sales_transactions" \
  --glossary-term-identifiers "c2fymbu18rtsx5"

Step 2: Search for data using business context

Use the SearchAssets API to find assets by business meaning.

aws glue search-assets \
  --search-text "active users"

Example output:

{
    "Items": [
        {"Id": "c9vq7sh2fk4t2h", "AssetName": "Customer Sales Transactions", "AssetTypeId": "Table"}
    ]
}

To filter results by asset type:

aws glue search-assets \
  --search-text "active users" \
  --filter-clause '{"AttributeFilter":{"Attribute":"type","Operator":"equals","Value":{"StringValue":"Table"}}}' \
  --max-results 10

To filter to only AWS Glue tables (excluding tables from other source systems):

aws glue search-assets \
  --search-text "active users" \
  --filter-clause '{"AndAllFilters":[{"AttributeFilter":{"Attribute":"type","Operator":"equals","Value":{"StringValue":"Table"}}},{"AttributeFilter":{"Attribute":"namespace","Operator":"equals","Value":{"StringValue":"amazon.glue"}}}]}' \
  --max-results 10

Using AI agents with the catalog

MCP-compatible AI agents can discover catalog assets, retrieve business context, and load skill content using skills from the AWS Agent Toolkit. You can get catalog skills in the following ways:

Next steps