MCP Tools Reference: dataplex.googleapis.com

Tool: search_entries

Searches for data assets matching the given query and scope in the Knowledge Catalog (formerly known as Dataplex).

Use this method to discover data assets (such as BigQuery tables, datasets, Cloud Storage buckets) across your Google Cloud organization or projects.

Best Practices for Agents: - Always make queries as specific as possible to reduce latency and token usage. Instead of searching broadly, combine filters like system, type, and name. Example: system:bigquery AND type:table AND name:customers - Use page_size to limit the volume of returned results, especially during exploratory phases. - This method returns basic entry information. To retrieve rich, LLM-ready metadata (including schemas, quality scores, and usage patterns), parse the dataplex_entry.name from the results and pass them to LookupContext. Alternatively, you can use LookupEntry to get detailed metadata about the entry.

The following sample demonstrate how to use curl to invoke the search_entries MCP tool.

Curl Request 
                  
curl --location 'https://dataplex.googleapis.com/mcp' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
--data '{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "search_entries",
    "arguments": {
      // provide these details according to the tool's MCP specification
    }
  },
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1
}'

Input Schema

Request message for Knowledge Catalog (formerly known as Dataplex) SearchEntries method.

SearchEntriesRequest

JSON representation 
{
  "projectId": string,
  "query": string,
  "pageSize": integer,
  "orderBy": enum (OrderBy),
  "scopeType": enum (ScopeType),
  "scopeId": string,
  "pageToken": string
}
Fields
projectId

string

Required. The project to which the request should be attributed. To execute the search, the caller must have the dataplex.projects.search permission on the project field.
query

string

Required. A query string for searching entries, following Knowledge Catalog search syntax. Supports logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) and grouping.

Syntax Guide: - Filter by System: system:bigquery, system:storage (for Cloud Storage) - Filter by Type: type:table, type:dataset, type:fileset - Filter by Name/Title: name:my_table or title:"My Table" - Free Text: Search for words like sales or finance anywhere in the metadata.

Examples: - Find a specific BigQuery table: system:bigquery AND type:table AND name:orders - Find filesets in a specific bucket area: system:storage AND type:fileset AND path:prod - Find anything related to "marketing" that is a table: type:table AND marketing

Warning: Performing broad searches without specific filters (e.g., type:table) can be slow and consume significant resources. When performing exploratory searches, always use the page_size parameter to limit the number of results returned.
pageSize

integer

Optional. Number of results in the search page. If <=0, then defaults to 10. Max limit for page_size is 1000. Throws an invalid argument for page_size > 1000.
orderBy

enum (OrderBy)

Optional. Specifies the ordering of results.
scopeType

enum (ScopeType)

Optional. Type of the scope to limit the search space.
scopeId

string

Optional. The ID of the scope to limit the search space (e.g. organization ID, or project ID/number depending on the scope_type).
pageToken

string

Optional. Page token received from a previous SearchEntries call. Provide this to retrieve the subsequent page.

OrderBy

Specifies the ordering of results.

Enums
ORDER_BY_UNSPECIFIED Default unspecified value.
RELEVANCE Order by relevance.
LAST_MODIFIED_TIMESTAMP Order by last modified timestamp.
LAST_MODIFIED_TIMESTAMP_ASC Order by last modified timestamp in ascending order.
LAST_MODIFIED_TIMESTAMP_DESC Order by last modified timestamp in descending order.

ScopeType

Type of scope to limit the search space.

Enums
SCOPE_TYPE_UNSPECIFIED Default unspecified value.
ORGANIZATION Limit the search to an organization.
PROJECT Limit the search to a project.

Output Schema

Response message for Knowledge Catalog (formerly known as Dataplex) SearchEntries method.

SearchEntriesResponse

JSON representation 
{
  "results": [
    {
      object (SearchEntriesResult)
    }
  ],
  "nextPageToken": string
}
Fields
results[]

object (SearchEntriesResult)

The list of entries that match the search query.
nextPageToken

string

Optional. Token to retrieve the next page of results, or empty if there are no more results in the list.

SearchEntriesResult

JSON representation 
{
  "dataplexEntry": {
    object (Entry)
  }
}
Fields
dataplexEntry

object (Entry)

The entry that matches the search query.

Entry

JSON representation 
{
  "name": string,
  "entryType": string,
  "createTime": string,
  "updateTime": string,
  "aspects": {
    string: {
      object (Aspect)
    },
    ...
  },
  "parentEntry": string,
  "fullyQualifiedName": string,
  "entrySource": {
    object (EntrySource)
  }
}
Fields
name

string

Identifier. The relative resource name of the entry, in the format projects/{project_id_or_number}/locations/{location_id}/entryGroups/{entry_group_id}/entries/{entry_id}.
entryType

string

Required. Immutable. The relative resource name of the entry type that was used to create this entry, in the format projects/{project_id_or_number}/locations/{location_id}/entryTypes/{entry_type_id}.
createTime

string (Timestamp format)

Output only. The time when the entry was created in Dataplex Universal Catalog.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
updateTime

string (Timestamp format)

Output only. The time when the entry was last updated in Dataplex Universal Catalog.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
aspects

map (key: string, value: object (Aspect))

Optional. The aspects that are attached to the entry. Depending on how the aspect is attached to the entry, the format of the aspect key can be one of the following:

  • If the aspect is attached directly to the entry: {project_id_or_number}.{location_id}.{aspect_type_id}
  • If the aspect is attached to an entry's path: {project_id_or_number}.{location_id}.{aspect_type_id}@{path}

An object containing a list of "key": value pairs. Example: { "name": "wrench", "mass": "1.3kg", "count": "3" }.
parentEntry

string

Optional. Immutable. The resource name of the parent entry, in the format projects/{project_id_or_number}/locations/{location_id}/entryGroups/{entry_group_id}/entries/{entry_id}.
fullyQualifiedName

string

Optional. A name for the entry that can be referenced by an external system. For more information, see Fully qualified names. The maximum size of the field is 4000 characters.
entrySource

object (EntrySource)

Optional. Information related to the source system of the data resource that is represented by the entry.

Timestamp

JSON representation 
{
  "seconds": string,
  "nanos": integer
}
Fields
seconds

string (int64 format)

Represents seconds of UTC time since Unix epoch 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z. Must be between -62135596800 and 253402300799 inclusive (which corresponds to 0001-01-01T00:00:00Z to 9999-12-31T23:59:59Z).
nanos

integer

Non-negative fractions of a second at nanosecond resolution. This field is the nanosecond portion of the duration, not an alternative to seconds. Negative second values with fractions must still have non-negative nanos values that count forward in time. Must be between 0 and 999,999,999 inclusive.

AspectsEntry

JSON representation 
{
  "key": string,
  "value": {
    object (Aspect)
  }
}
Fields
key

string
value

object (Aspect)

Aspect

JSON representation 
{
  "aspectType": string,
  "path": string,
  "createTime": string,
  "updateTime": string,
  "data": {
    object
  },
  "aspectSource": {
    object (AspectSource)
  }
}
Fields
aspectType

string

Output only. The resource name of the type used to create this Aspect.
path

string

Output only. The path in the entry under which the aspect is attached.
createTime

string (Timestamp format)

Output only. The time when the Aspect was created.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
updateTime

string (Timestamp format)

Output only. The time when the Aspect was last updated.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
data

object (Struct format)

Required. The content of the aspect, according to its aspect type schema. The maximum size of the field is 120KB (encoded as UTF-8).
aspectSource

object (AspectSource)

Optional. Information related to the source system of the aspect.

Struct

JSON representation 
{
  "fields": {
    string: value,
    ...
  }
}
Fields
fields

map (key: string, value: value (Value format))

Unordered map of dynamically typed values.

An object containing a list of "key": value pairs. Example: { "name": "wrench", "mass": "1.3kg", "count": "3" }.

FieldsEntry

JSON representation 
{
  "key": string,
  "value": value
}
Fields
key

string
value

value (Value format)

Value

JSON representation 
{

  // Union field kind can be only one of the following:
  "nullValue": null,
  "numberValue": number,
  "stringValue": string,
  "boolValue": boolean,
  "structValue": {
    object
  },
  "listValue": array
  // End of list of possible types for union field kind.
}
Fields
Union field kind. The kind of value. kind can be only one of the following:
nullValue

null

Represents a JSON null.
numberValue

number

Represents a JSON number. Must not be NaN, Infinity or -Infinity, since those are not supported in JSON. This also cannot represent large Int64 values, since JSON format generally does not support them in its number type.
stringValue

string

Represents a JSON string.
boolValue

boolean

Represents a JSON boolean (true or false literal in JSON).
structValue

object (Struct format)

Represents a JSON object.
listValue

array (ListValue format)

Represents a JSON array.

ListValue

JSON representation 
{
  "values": [
    value
  ]
}
Fields
values[]

value (Value format)

Repeated field of dynamically typed values.

AspectSource

JSON representation 
{
  "createTime": string,
  "updateTime": string,
  "dataVersion": string
}
Fields
createTime

string (Timestamp format)

The time the aspect was created in the source system.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
updateTime

string (Timestamp format)

The time the aspect was last updated in the source system.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
dataVersion

string

The version of the data format used to produce this data. This field is used to indicated when the underlying data format changes (e.g., schema modifications, changes to the source URL format definition, etc).

EntrySource

JSON representation 
{
  "resource": string,
  "system": string,
  "platform": string,
  "displayName": string,
  "description": string,
  "labels": {
    string: string,
    ...
  },
  "ancestors": [
    {
      object (Ancestor)
    }
  ],
  "createTime": string,
  "updateTime": string,
  "location": string
}
Fields
resource

string

The name of the resource in the source system. Maximum length is 4,000 characters.
system

string

The name of the source system. Maximum length is 64 characters.
platform

string

The platform containing the source system. Maximum length is 64 characters.
displayName

string

A user-friendly display name. Maximum length is 500 characters.
description

string

A description of the data resource. Maximum length is 2,000 characters.
labels

map (key: string, value: string)

User-defined labels. The maximum size of keys and values is 128 characters each.

An object containing a list of "key": value pairs. Example: { "name": "wrench", "mass": "1.3kg", "count": "3" }.
ancestors[]

object (Ancestor)

Immutable. The entries representing the ancestors of the data resource in the source system.
createTime

string (Timestamp format)

The time when the resource was created in the source system.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
updateTime

string (Timestamp format)

The time when the resource was last updated in the source system. If the entry exists in the system and its EntrySource has update_time populated, further updates to the EntrySource of the entry must provide incremental updates to its update_time.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
location

string

Output only. Location of the resource in the source system. You can search the entry by this location. By default, this should match the location of the entry group containing this entry. A different value allows capturing the source location for data external to Google Cloud.

LabelsEntry

JSON representation 
{
  "key": string,
  "value": string
}
Fields
key

string
value

string

Ancestor

JSON representation 
{
  "name": string,
  "type": string
}
Fields
name

string

Optional. The name of the ancestor resource.
type

string

Optional. The type of the ancestor resource.

NullValue

Represents a JSON null.

NullValue is a sentinel, using an enum with only one value to represent the null value for the Value type union.

A field of type NullValue with any value other than 0 is considered invalid. Most ProtoJSON serializers will emit a Value with a null_value set as a JSON null regardless of the integer value, and so will round trip to a 0 value.

Enums
NULL_VALUE Null value.

Tool Annotations

Destructive Hint: ❌ | Idempotent Hint: ❌ | Read Only Hint: ✅ | Open World Hint: ❌