Curation

The curation agent updates catalog objects based on user requests. The agent searches for relevant objects, analyzes their current state, and updates them according to the user’s intent.

How it works

The agent follows this workflow:

1. Receives a natural language question from the user
2. Searches for relevant catalog objects to update based on the user’s request
3. Gets custom field definition details to apply accurate updates
4. Updates objects individually, modifying titles, descriptions, and custom fields as specified

Input parameters

Required:

• message (string): The natural language request to send to the agent

Optional:

• asset_ids (list of strings): A list of asset_ids, obtained from uploading PDFs or text files containing context for the agent to use when curating catalog objects.

Output format

The agent produces a series of thinking, tool call, tool return, and text blocks as it works through the user request. The final message, assuming no errors, is a string.

Available tools

The agent is configured with 6 tools:

Run the catalog context search agent

Executes the Catalog Context Search agent to find relevant catalog objects based on the user’s request.

Key parameters:

• message: A search query derived from the user’s request

Get custom fields definition

Retrieves all custom fields defined in the Alation catalog, including information on how to use them.

Get users

Search for Alation users by name or email. Results are paginated, and include user IDs, names, and emails for use with curation actions.

Key parameters:

• limit: Maximum number of users to return
• skip: Number of users to skip for pagination
• order_by: Field to order results by (“id” by default)
• display_name__icontains: Filter users whose display name contains this string
• email__icontains: Filter users whose email contains this string

Get groups

Search for groups in Alation by name or email. Results are paginated, and include group IDs and names for use with curation actions.

Key parameters:

• limit: Maximum number of groups to return
• skip: Number of groups to skip for pagination
• order_by: Field to order results by (“id” by default)
• display_name__icontains: Filter groups whose display name contains this string
• email__icontains: Filter groups whose email contains this string

Get catalog object

Retrieves detailed information about catalog objects by their IDs and a specified set of fields.

Key parameters:

• object_type: The type of catalog object (“schema”, “table”, and “column” are allowed)
• object_id: The ID of the catalog object to retrieve

Update catalog object

Updates catalog objects by ID, modifying their titles, descriptions, and custom field values as specified.

Key parameters:

• object_type: The type of catalog object (“schema”, “table”, and “column” are allowed)
• object_id: The ID of the catalog object to update
• title: An updated title for the object
• description: An updated description for the object
• custom_fields: Updates to custom field values on the object

Behavior notes

• The agent searches for relevant objects based on the user’s request
• Currently the agent supports curating schemas, tables, and columns
• The agent may update titles, descriptions, and custom fields on catalog objects
• The agent may not exhaustively update all relevant objects in a single run, and is intended for small, interactive updates. Alation’s bulk Curation Automation tool is recommended for bulk updates.