DESCRIBE

Commands › Looking around · Any caller; rows they are not granted never appear

Describes one object: what it is, its columns and how to read it. What comes back depends on what the name is.

Syntax

DESCRIBE <name>
DESCRIBE [ ENTITY ] <corpus>.<Entity>
DESCRIBE CORPUS <corpus>
DESCRIBE ONTOLOGY <ontology>
DESCRIBE TOOL <tool>
DESCRIBE EDGE <edge>
DESCRIBE plugins
DESCRIBE plugins.<table>

Parameters

Form	Describes
DESCRIBE <name>	Tried in this order: a model entity or relation (what its kind means, its key, time columns, how it is stored, its columns, what it is made from, every relation in and out with a ready walk, sample rows); a view or materialized view (its description, columns with meanings, the tables it reads, freshness, definition and an example query); a corpus or ontology (its entities, as SHOW ENTITIES IN lists them).
DESCRIBE <corpus>.<Entity>	An extracted entity: one row per column with column_name, type, required, is_key, enum_values, description. ENTITY may be written before the name.
DESCRIBE CORPUS <corpus>, DESCRIBE ONTOLOGY <ontology>	The entities of a corpus or ontology, as SHOW ENTITIES IN lists them.
DESCRIBE TOOL <tool>	A saved tool: name, description, parameters, body, example (a ready CALL), managed_by.
DESCRIBE EDGE <edge>	A declared edge, as property and value rows.
DESCRIBE plugins, DESCRIBE plugins.<table>	The installed plugin tables, or one table's contract.

Usage notes

• Model entities, relations and views come back as property and value rows, in sections.
• A name the caller may not read is not found, as a missing one is.
• The SerchaQL statement takes names of one or two parts. Over MCP, the describe tool also describes tables.<source>.<table>, clean.<source>.<table> and data.<table>, and describe serchaql returns the language reference.
• The MCP query tool does not run DESCRIBE; use the describe tool.
• DESCRIBE TOOL, DESCRIBE EDGE, DESCRIBE CORPUS and DESCRIBE ONTOLOGY need a name after the keyword; DESCRIBE tool alone describes a view called tool.

Examples

A model entity:

DESCRIBE Order

property	value
entity	Order
is	ARTEFACT: Information: one content however many copies or versions are kept (a ticket, a contract, a file).
description	A purchase order.
key	key

An extracted entity:

DESCRIBE books.Invoice

column_name	type	required	is_key	enum_values	description
invoice_no	string	true	true		The invoice number as printed.
total	number	false	false		The stated total, tax included.

A saved tool:

DESCRIBE TOOL customer_orders

Not supported

Refused	Write instead
A three-part name, as tables.<source>.<table>	The MCP describe tool, or SELECT ... LIMIT 5

-- Refused by the engine
DESCRIBE tables.drive.file

See also

SHOW · SHOW MODEL · CREATE ENTITY · CREATE VIEW · CREATE TOOL · COMMENT ON