Another interesting query would be to retrieve all the fields annotated with PII
for example.
On 2025/08/11 01:01:21 Yifan Cai wrote:
> >
> > Will there be an option to do a SELECT query to read all the annotations
> > of a table?
>
>
> It is an interesting question! Would you mind sharing an example of the
> output you'd expect from a query like *"SELECT * FROM
> system_schema.annotations where keyspace_name=<> and table_name=<>"*? I am
> curious how that might differ from what we get when running "DESC TABLE".
>
> - Yifan
>
> On Sat, Aug 9, 2025 at 9:43 AM Jaydeep Chovatia <chovatia.jayd...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > >we could explore enriching the syntax with DESCRIBE
> >
> > Will there be an option to do a SELECT query to read all the annotations
> > of a table? Something like *"SELECT * FROM system_schema.annotations
> > where keyspace_name=<> and table_name=<>"*
> > It would be helpful to have a structured CQL query on top of printing the
> > annotations through DESC so that the information can be consumed easily.
> >
> > Jaydeep
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 11:03 AM Jyothsna Konisa <jyothsna1...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks, Joel, for the positive response.
> >>
> >> 1. User-defined vs. pre-defined annotation types
> >>
> >> We'd like to have one predefined annotation, Description, but also give
> >> users the flexibility to create new ones. If a user feels that a custom
> >> annotation like @Desc suits their use case, they should be allowed to use
> >> it, as these elements are purely descriptive and have no actions associated
> >> with them.
> >>
> >> 2. Syntactically, is it worth considering other alternatives?
> >>
> >> You're concerned that having several annotations on multiple columns
> >> could make schemas difficult to read. For now, we can have annotations
> >> printed as part of DESCRIBE statements. If there's a strong need to
> >> suppress annotations for readability, we could explore enriching the syntax
> >> with DESCRIBE [FULL] SCHEMA [WITH ANNOTATIONS], similar to the existing
> >> DESCRIBE [FULL] SCHEMA.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Jyothsna
> >>
> >> On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 10:56 AM Jyothsna Konisa <jyothsna1...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Thanks, Stefan, for your feedback!
> >>>
> >>> To answer your questions,
> >>>
> >>> 1. I agree; annotations can optionally take arguments, and if an
> >>> annotation doesn't have an argument, we can skip the arguments in the
> >>> "DESCRIBE" statement's output.
> >>>
> >>> 2. Good point. We originally considered using "ANNOTATED WITH" but found
> >>> it too verbose. As an alternative, we proposed using "@" preceding the
> >>> annotation to signal it to the parser. We are open to using an explicit
> >>> phrase like "ANNOTATED WITH" if you think it would make the code more
> >>> readable.
> >>>
> >>> A full example of annotations along with constraints and masking could
> >>> be:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> CREATE TABLE test_ks.test_table (
> >>> id int PRIMARY KEY,
> >>> col2 int CHECK col2 > 0 ANNOTATED WITH @PII AND @DESCRIPTION('this
> >>> is column col2') MASKED WITH default()
> >>> );
> >>>
> >>> OR
> >>>
> >>> CREATE TABLE test_ks.test_table (
> >>> id int PRIMARY KEY,
> >>> col2 int CHECK col2 > 0 @PII AND @DESCRIPTION('this is column col2')
> >>> MASKED WITH default()
> >>> );
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> 3. We do not have a prototype yet, but I think we will have to introduce
> >>> new parsing branch for annotations at the table level
> >>>
> >>> I hope I answered all your questions!
> >>>
> >>> - Jyothsna
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 11:36 AM Joel Shepherd <sheph...@amazon.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I like the aim of the CEP. Completely onboard with the idea that GenAI
> >>>> tooling works better when you can provide it useful context about the
> >>>> data
> >>>> it is working with. An organization I worked with in the past had a lot
> >>>> of
> >>>> good results with marking up API models (not DB schemas, but similar
> >>>> idea)
> >>>> with authorization-related annotations and using those to drive policy
> >>>> linters and end-user interfaces. So, sold on the value of the capability.
> >>>>
> >>>> Two things I'm less sure of:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) User-defined vs pre-defined annotation types: I appreciate the
> >>>> flexibility that user-defined annotations appears to give, but it adds
> >>>> extra room for error. E.g. if annotation names are case-sensitive, do I
> >>>> (the user) have to actively prevent creation of @description? Or, police
> >>>> the accidental creation of alternative names like @Desc? If the community
> >>>> settled on a small, fixed set of supported annotations, so Cassandra
> >>>> itself
> >>>> was authoritative for valid annotation names, would make the feature a
> >>>> lot
> >>>> less valuable, or prevent offering user-defined annotations in the
> >>>> future?
> >>>>
> >>>> 2) Syntactically, is it worth considering other alternatives? I was
> >>>> trying to imagine a CREATE TABLE statement marked up with two or three
> >>>> types of column-level annotations, and my sense is that it could get hard
> >>>> to read quickly. Is it worth considering Javadoc-style annotations in
> >>>> schema comments instead? I think in today's world that means that they
> >>>> would not be accessible via CQL/Cassandra (CQL comments are not persisted
> >>>> as part of the schema, correct?) but they could be accessible to other
> >>>> schema-processing tools and IMO be a more readable syntax. It'd be good
> >>>> to
> >>>> work through a couple use-cases for actually using the data provided by
> >>>> the
> >>>> annotations and get a sense of whether making them first-class entities
> >>>> in
> >>>> CQL is necessary for getting most of the value from them.
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks -- Joel.
> >>>> On 8/6/2025 6:59 PM, Jyothsna Konisa wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Sorry for the incorrect editable link, here is the updated link to the
> >>>> CEP
> >>>> 52: Schema Annotations for ApacheCassandra
> >>>> <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CASSANDRA/CEP+52%3A+Schema+Annotations+for+ApacheCassandra>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 4:26 PM Jyothsna Konisa <jyothsna1...@gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hello Everyone!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We would like to propose CEP 52: Schema Annotations for
> >>>>> ApacheCassandra
> >>>>> <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/resumedraft.action?draftId=373887528&draftShareId=339b7f4e-9bc2-45bd-9a80-b0d4215e3f45&;>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This CEP outlines a plan to introduce *Schema Annotations* as a way
> >>>>> to add better context to schema elements. We're also proposing a set of
> >>>>> new
> >>>>> DDL statements to manage these annotations.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We believe these annotations will be highly beneficial for several key
> >>>>> areas:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -
> >>>>>
> >>>>> GenAI Applications: Providing more context to LLMs could
> >>>>> significantly improve the accuracy and relevance of generated
> >>>>> content.
> >>>>> -
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Data Governance: Annotations can help in enforcing policies using
> >>>>> annotations
> >>>>> -
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Compliance: They can be used to track and manage compliance
> >>>>> requirements directly within the schema.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We're eager to hear your thoughts and feedback on this proposal.
> >>>>> Please keep the discussion within this mailing thread.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks for your time and feedback in advance.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Best regards,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Jyothsna & Yifan
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
>
