See Finding Your Alation Version for help determining which version of Alation you're using.

2026.4.0.0 API Release Notes

New: Bulk Per-Object Parameters API

Introducing the Bulk Per-Object Parameters API to help administrators and data stewards manage metadata efficiently at scale. This API allows you to bulk update settings like visibility (excluded), security (sensitive), and profiling configurations across schemas, tables, and attributes.

Key Highlights

• Async Processing: Submit large update payloads instantly. The API processes your request asynchronously, returning a job_id that you can use to poll for completion status.
• Flexible Upload Formats: Supports both text/csv and application/json payload formats, allowing you to integrate with your preferred scripting tools or bulk export files.
• Hierarchical Object Targeting: Target objects precisely using a standard dot-notation key format: <ds_id>.<schema_name>.<table_name>.<attribute_name>. _

Multi-schema data sources automatically add a catalog component.

Endpoints

• Submit Bulk Update POST /api/v2/bulk/per-object-parameters/: Submits a CSV or JSON payload of parameters to update.
• Poll Job Status GET /api/v2/bulk/per-object-parameters/job/{job_id}/: Retrieves the real-time status of your bulk update.

Field Applicability & Cascading Rules

Not all parameters apply to every level of your data hierarchy. Please reference the following support table when building your requests:

Cascade Behavior
To save time, certain parameters applied at higher levels will automatically cascade downward:

• excluded: Schema settings cascade to tables and attributes; Table settings cascade to attributes.
• sensitive: Schema settings cascade to tables and attributes; Table settings cascade to attributes.
• skip_profiling: Schema settings cascade to tables.

Important Limitations

To ensure system stability, the following default limits are enforced on incoming requests (these can be adjusted by server admins via alation_conf):

• Maximum File Size: 10 MB (alation.api.bulk_per_object_parameters.max_file_size_bytes).
• Maximum Rows per Request: 10,000 (alation.api.bulk_per_object_parameters.max_row_count).
• Payloads violating validation rules (e.g., missing required keys, invalid booleans) will return a 400 Bad Request outlining up to 5 line-specific errors.

Update: File Attributes Management in Relational Integration API

Added support for managing File Attributes (columns) under existing filesystems. This addition allows you to programmatically read, create, and update file-based metadata alongside standard relational data.

New Endpoints

• GET /file_attribute/: Fetch multiple file attributes with robust support for filtering, sorting, and pagination. Please note that the fs_id (filesystem ID) query parameter is strictly required to use this endpoint.
• POST /file_attribute/: Create new file attributes in bulk for a specified filesystem (fs_id). This endpoint allows you to define standard metadata (like data type, position, and nullability) and also supports assigning custom fields during creation.
• PATCH /file_attribute/: Update existing file attributes and their custom fields in bulk. To successfully target objects for updates, you must provide either the id or the unique key for each file attribute in your payload.

Key Specifications & Constraints

When implementing these new endpoints, keep the following operational rules in mind:

• Object Key Formatting: A period-delimited key uniquely identifies file attributes within a filesystem. The required format is {FS_ID}.{FILE_PATH}.{ATTRIBUTE_NAME} (e.g., "2.snowflake-external-edg/Test.txt.new_column").
• Scale and Payload Limits: Both the POST and PATCH endpoints are designed for bulk operations but enforce a maximum payload limit of 10,000 objects per request.
• Required Permissions: To write or modify file attributes, the executing user must be a Server Admin, or a FileSystem Admin holding either a Source Admin or Catalog Admin role.
• Custom Fields Support: Just like relational schemas and tables, you can update custom fields for file attributes. Ensure these fields are first associated with the file_attribute otype template via the Customize Catalog UI before making API calls.