Business glossaries for AWS Glue Data Catalog

A business glossary is a container for controlled vocabulary terms that define business concepts within your organization. Associate glossary terms with Data Catalog assets to enrich them with business meaning and improve discoverability through semantic search.

Creating a glossary

Use CreateGlossary to create a business glossary.

aws glue create-glossary \
    --name "Finance Data Definitions" \
    --description "Standardized financial terms used across reporting and analytics"

Example output:

{
    "Id": "gl-c9vq7sh2fk4t2h",
    "Name": "Finance Data Definitions"
}

Creating glossary terms

Use CreateGlossaryTerm to add terms to a glossary.

aws glue create-glossary-term \
    --glossary-identifier glossary-id \
    --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. Used as the standard engagement metric across all product teams."

Example output:

{
    "Id": "gt-d7xm3np5rk2w9j",
    "GlossaryId": "gl-c9vq7sh2fk4t2h",
    "Name": "Active User"
}

Associating glossary terms with assets

Use AssociateGlossaryTerms to associate terms with Data Catalog assets.

aws glue associate-glossary-terms \
    --identifier asset-id \
    --glossary-term-identifiers '["term-id-1", "term-id-2"]'

Example output:

{
    "Identifier": "c2fymbu18rtsx5",
    "GlossaryTerms": [
        {"Id": "gt-d7xm3np5rk2w9j", "Name": "Active User"},
        {"Id": "gt-h4kp9wt6mq3v2n", "Name": "PII"}
    ]
}

Removing glossary term associations

Use DisassociateGlossaryTerms to remove term associations from an asset.

aws glue disassociate-glossary-terms \
    --identifier asset-id \
    --glossary-term-identifiers '["term-id"]'

Updating glossaries and terms

Updates take effect immediately and are reflected in search results.

To update a glossary

Use UpdateGlossary:

aws glue update-glossary \
    --identifier glossary-id \
    --name "Enterprise Finance Glossary" \
    --description "Updated standardized financial terms for enterprise reporting"

To update a glossary term

Use UpdateGlossaryTerm:

aws glue update-glossary-term \
    --identifier term-id \
    --name "Monthly Active User" \
    --short-description "A user with at least one login in the last 30 days"

Deleting glossaries and terms

You must delete all terms from a glossary before you can delete the glossary.

To delete a glossary term

Use DeleteGlossaryTerm:

aws glue delete-glossary-term \
    --identifier term-id

To delete a glossary

Use DeleteGlossary after removing all terms:

aws glue delete-glossary \
    --identifier glossary-id

Listing glossaries and terms

Both ListGlossaries and ListGlossaryTerms support pagination with MaxResults and NextToken.

To list all glossaries

Run the following command:

aws glue list-glossaries \
    --max-results 10

Example output:

{
    "Items": [
        {"Id": "gl-c9vq7sh2fk4t2h", "Name": "Finance Data Definitions"},
        {"Id": "gl-f8yn2bx7jl5r4k", "Name": "Marketing Glossary"}
    ]
}

To list terms in a glossary

Run the following command:

aws glue list-glossary-terms \
    --glossary-identifier glossary-id \
    --max-results 10

Example output:

{
    "GlossaryId": "gl-c9vq7sh2fk4t2h",
    "Items": [
        {"Id": "gt-d7xm3np5rk2w9j", "Name": "Active User"},
        {"Id": "gt-j6rm4xv9np8w3t", "Name": "EBITDA"}
    ]
}

Retrieving glossary and term details

To retrieve a glossary

Run the following command:

aws glue get-glossary \
    --identifier glossary-id

To retrieve a glossary term

Run the following command:

aws glue get-glossary-term \
    --identifier term-id