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Glossary Overview

OSS

The glossary system helps you maintain a business dictionary of terms, metrics, dimensions, and policies for data governance.

Cloud vs OSS

This section documents OSS (Open Source) glossary features. For Cloud Platform glossary features, see Cloud Glossary Management.

Purpose​

The glossary provides:

  • Business context: Link technical columns to business terms
  • Data governance: Define policies and rules
  • AI enhancement: Better AI understanding of your data
  • Documentation: Self-documenting data assets

Structure​

The glossary contains:

Terms​

Business concepts (e.g., "Customer", "Revenue"):

terms:
  - id: term.customer
    name: Customer
    description: A customer entity

Metrics​

Calculated measures (e.g., "Monthly Revenue"):

metrics:
  - id: metric.monthly_revenue
    name: Monthly Revenue
    description: Total revenue per month
    formula: SUM(amount)

Dimensions​

Categorization attributes (e.g., "Region"):

dimensions:
  - id: dim.region
    name: Region
    description: Geographic region

Policies​

Rules and constraints (e.g., "No PII in public assets"):

policies:
  - name: No PII in public assets
    rule: PII columns cannot be in public schema
    pii_columns: [email, ssn, phone]

Storage​

Glossary is stored in:

  • Project-level: glossary.yaml or msh.yaml (glossary section)
  • Cache: .msh/glossary.json (auto-generated)

Quick Start​

1. Create Terms​

msh glossary add-term "Customer" --description "A customer entity"
msh glossary link-term "Customer" --asset revenue --column customer_id

3. List Glossary​

msh glossary list

4. Export Glossary​

msh glossary export --path glossary.json

Benefits​

AI Enhancement​

Glossary terms improve AI understanding:

# AI understands "Customer" means customer_id column
msh ai explain assets/revenue.msh
# Output includes: "This asset calculates revenue per Customer..."

Data Governance​

Policies enforce rules:

policies:
  - name: No PII in public assets
    rule: PII columns cannot be in public schema

Enforcement:

  • PII columns are masked in context packs
  • PII columns are blocked in public assets
  • Policy violations are reported

Documentation​

Glossary provides self-documenting assets:

msh glossary list
# Shows all terms, metrics, dimensions, and policies