Server-side descriptions

Server-side descriptions are human-readable strings attached to schema elements - labels, edge types, properties and databases - that Memgraph stores durably and surfaces alongside the schema.

They are useful for documenting the meaning of nodes, edges and properties directly inside the database, so tools that consume SHOW SCHEMA INFO (such as LLM-based clients, GraphChat, MCP, text2cypher, or your own tooling) can pick the descriptions up automatically.

Descriptions are persisted to disk (WAL and snapshots), replicated to replicas and emitted by DUMP DATABASE, so they survive restarts and migrations the same way schema does.

Description targets

You can attach a description to any of the following targets:

Multi-label combinations are matched exactly; setting a description on :Person:Student does not affect nodes that only carry :Person.

Set a description

Use SET DESCRIPTION ON <target> "<text>":

SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL :Person "A person node";
SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL :Person:Student "A student person";

SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE :KNOWS "Knows relationship";
SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE (:Person)-[:KNOWS]->(:Person) "Person knows person";
SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE (:Person:Employee)-[:MENTORS]->(:Person:Student) "Employee mentors student";

SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL PROPERTY :Person(name) "Full name";
SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE PROPERTY :KNOWS(since) "Year they met";
SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE PROPERTY (:Person)-[:KNOWS]->(:Person)(since) "Year they met (pattern)";
SET DESCRIPTION ON PROPERTY age "Age in years";

SET DESCRIPTION ON DATABASE memgraph "Main graph database";

Setting a description on a target that already has one overwrites the previous value.

Delete a description

Use the same target syntax with DELETE DESCRIPTION:

DELETE DESCRIPTION ON LABEL :Person;
DELETE DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE (:Person)-[:KNOWS]->(:Person);
DELETE DESCRIPTION ON LABEL PROPERTY :Person(name);
DELETE DESCRIPTION ON PROPERTY age;
DELETE DESCRIPTION ON DATABASE memgraph;

Show descriptions

List every description currently stored in the database:

SHOW DESCRIPTIONS;

Result columns:

• type - kind of target. One of "label", "edge type", "label property", "edge type property", "property", or "database". Edge-type-pattern targets share the "edge type" / "edge type property" value with their global counterparts and are distinguished by the populated start_node_labels and end_node_labels columns.
• label - label or label combination, when applicable.
• start_node_labels - source labels, for edge type patterns.
• end_node_labels - destination labels, for edge type patterns.
• property - property key, when applicable.
• description - the stored text.

Columns that don’t apply to a given row are returned as Null.

Descriptions in SHOW SCHEMA INFO

When run-time schema tracking is enabled, SHOW SCHEMA INFO enriches its JSON output with optional description fields on nodes, edges and their properties. The field is only present when a matching description exists.

Description resolution follows a priority chain:

• Nodes - exact label-combo match.
• Node properties - label-property description, falling back to the global property description.
• Edges - edge type pattern matching the exact source and destination labels, falling back to the global edge type description.
• Edge properties - edge-type-pattern-property, falling back to edge-type-property, then to the global property description.

For example, after:

SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL :Person "A person node";
SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL PROPERTY :Person(name) "Full name";
SET DESCRIPTION ON PROPERTY age "Age in years";

the relevant slice of SHOW SCHEMA INFO looks like:

{
  "nodes": [{
    "labels": ["Person"],
    "count": 1,
    "description": "A person node",
    "properties": [
      { "key": "name", "count": 1, "filling_factor": 100.0, "description": "Full name", "types": [...] },
      { "key": "age",  "count": 1, "filling_factor": 100.0, "description": "Age in years", "types": [...] }
    ]
  }]
}

Privileges

Managing descriptions requires the SERVER_SIDE_DESCRIPTIONS privilege. This applies to:

• SET DESCRIPTION ON ...
• DELETE DESCRIPTION ON ...
• SHOW DESCRIPTIONS

Reading descriptions through SHOW SCHEMA INFO follows the same privilege model as the rest of SHOW SCHEMA INFO, including fine-grained access control.

See the Query privileges reference for a full list of privilege requirements.

Use cases

Self-documenting schema for AI tooling

Tools that hand SHOW SCHEMA INFO to an LLM benefit from descriptions because the model gets a richer, hand-curated view of the graph. This is true for the Memgraph MCP server, GraphChat, and text2cypher pipelines.

SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL :Account "Customer account, one per signed-up user";
SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL PROPERTY :Account(tenant) "Tenant id this account belongs to";
SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE :OWNS "Account-to-resource ownership edge";

Annotating a data model

Descriptions can capture domain knowledge that the names alone don’t convey - units, allowed value ranges, or links to upstream systems:

SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL PROPERTY :Sensor(temperature) "Reading in degrees Celsius";
SET DESCRIPTION ON LABEL PROPERTY :Order(amount) "Total in cents, in the order's currency";
SET DESCRIPTION ON EDGE TYPE :PAID_WITH "Links an order to the payment method actually charged";