Manage your AlloyDB resources using Knowledge Catalog

Knowledge Catalog integration is enabled by default for all new AlloyDB clusters, allowing you to search for and manage your AlloyDB for PostgreSQL resources using Knowledge Catalog, a platform that lets you store, manage, and access metadata. This integration helps you discover and understand your AlloyDB metadata, supporting the following use cases:

Analysis: Understand dependencies and assess suitability for various use cases.
Change Management: Track and manage metadata changes effectively.
Schema Evolution: Monitor and plan schema modifications.

Knowledge Catalog automatically retrieves the following metadata from AlloyDB clusters, instances, databases, tables, columns, and views:

Name
Location (Region)
Labels (for clusters and instances)
Dataplex Integration Enabled (for clusters)
Database Version
Machine CPU Count (for instances)
Availability Type (for instances)
Charset (for databases)
Collation (for databases)
Owner
Description (for table, views, columns, and foreign keys)
Type (for clusters, instances, and machines)
Columns
- Data Type
- Mode
Primary Key
Foreign Keys
- Referenced Table
- Column Mappings
Creation Time
Last modification Time

For more information, see About metadata management in Knowledge Catalog.

Types of metadata discovery

Knowledge Catalog metadata discovery is an automated process that scans connected data sources—such as AlloyDB—to identify data assets like tables, views, and databases. Then, Knowledge Catalog extracts technical metadata from the assets like schemas, descriptions, and locations, into Knowledge Catalog.

This process syncs metadata in near real-time, which keeps the catalog synchronized with source systems. For AlloyDB, cluster and instance metadata is discovered by default. Database, schema, table, and view metadata discovery is enabled by default on new clusters. For clusters created before this default was implemented (February 26, 2026), manually enable the integration.

Keyword and natural language search

Knowledge Catalog supports keyword and natural language searches.

Keyword search helps you find resources using specific keywords, filters, and a defined syntax. For example, to view all AlloyDB databases, enter system=AlloyDB AND type=Database.
Natural language search uses AI to understand semantic queries. It helps you find resources using everyday language, eliminating the need for complex syntax. For example, enter a query such as List all AlloyDB tables related to sales.

For more information, see Search syntax for Knowledge Catalog.

Example: Discovering an AlloyDB database schema

To understand the metadata discovery process, consider the example of an AlloyDB cluster named user-data-cluster with Knowledge Catalog integration enabled. Inside this cluster's primary instance, a database named profiles exists, which contains a table customers (id, email, signup_date) and a view active_users (id, email).

Because AlloyDB syncs in near real-time to Knowledge Catalog, the following resources are available:

Clusters
Columns
Databases
Instances
Tables
Views

After discovery is complete, search for these assets—customers table and active_users—in the Knowledge Catalog page of the Google Cloud console or by using the API. Then, view their schemas and enrich them with additional business or operational metadata.

Enrich metadata using aspects

Aspect types are reusable resources that serve as templates for aspects. Aspect types help avoid duplicating work and creating incomplete aspects. Create the necessary aspect types using Knowledge Catalog.

After you create custom aspect types, attach aspects to your AlloyDB assets. Attaching aspects to AlloyDB assets lets you do the following:

Add business metadata to the assets.
Search for assets by business metadata and other custom metadata.

To learn more about creating aspect types and attaching aspects to AlloyDB, see Manage aspects and enrich metadata.

Metadata discovery workflow

By default, cluster and instance resources are ingested and discoverable. To ingest and discover database, schema, table and view resources, follow these steps:

Enable the Knowledge Catalog integration for your AlloyDB cluster using the AlloyDB API if it's not already enabled. This is required for clusters created before February 26, 2026.
Search for your AlloyDB assets using the Knowledge Catalog search page in the Google Cloud console. For more information, see Search for resources in Knowledge Catalog.
To add more context to your AlloyDB assets, attach aspects to your assets. Aspects are custom metadata entries that help with data governance and analysis. For example, use an aspect to label a column that contains personally identifiable information (PII). For more information, see Manage aspects and enrich metadata.
Navigate through your AlloyDB resources following this hierarchy: Cluster > Database > Schema > Table or View > Column. This hierarchy provides a detailed view of your data landscape. For more information, see Search for resources in Knowledge Catalog.

Before you begin

Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.