Glean Python API Client

The Glean Python SDK provides convenient access to the Glean REST API from any Python 3.8+ application. It includes type hints for all request parameters and response fields, and supports both synchronous and asynchronous usage via httpx.

Unified SDK Architecture

This SDK combines both the Client and Indexing API namespaces into a single unified package:

• Client API: Used for search, retrieval, and end-user interactions with Glean content
• Indexing API: Used for indexing content, permissions, and other administrative operations

Each namespace has its own authentication requirements and access patterns. While they serve different purposes, having them in a single SDK provides a consistent developer experience across all Glean API interactions.

# Example of accessing Client namespace
from glean import Glean, models
import os

with Glean(api_token="client-token") as glean:
    search_response = glean.client.search.query(
        search_request=models.SearchRequest(query="search term")
    )
    print(search_response)

# Example of accessing Indexing namespace 
from glean import Glean, models
import os

with Glean(api_token="indexing-token") as glean:
    document_response = glean.indexing.documents.index(
        document=models.Document(
            id="doc-123",
            title="Sample Document",
            container_id="container-456",
            datasource="confluence"
        )
    )

Remember that each namespace requires its own authentication token type as described in the Authentication Methods section.

Table of Contents

• Glean Python API Client
  • Unified SDK Architecture
  • SDK Installation
  • IDE Support
  • SDK Example Usage
  • Authentication
  • Available Resources and Operations
  • Retries
  • Error Handling
  • Server Selection
  • Custom HTTP Client
  • Resource Management
  • Debugging
• Development
  • Maturity
  • Contributions

SDK Installation

Note

Python version upgrade policy

Once a Python version reaches its official end of life date, a 3-month grace period is provided for users to upgrade. Following this grace period, the minimum python version supported in the SDK will be updated.

The SDK can be installed with either pip or poetry package managers.

PIP

PIP is the default package installer for Python, enabling easy installation and management of packages from PyPI via the command line.

pip install glean-api-client

Poetry

Poetry is a modern tool that simplifies dependency management and package publishing by using a single pyproject.toml file to handle project metadata and dependencies.

poetry add glean-api-client

Shell and script usage with uv

You can use this SDK in a Python shell with uv and the uvx command that comes with it like so:

uvx --from glean-api-client python

It's also possible to write a standalone Python script without needing to set up a whole project like so:

#!/usr/bin/env -S uv run --script
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.9"
# dependencies = [
#     "glean-api-client",
# ]
# ///

from glean import Glean

sdk = Glean(
  # SDK arguments
)

# Rest of script here...

Once that is saved to a file, you can run it with uv run script.py where script.py can be replaced with the actual file name.

IDE Support

PyCharm

Generally, the SDK will work well with most IDEs out of the box. However, when using PyCharm, you can enjoy much better integration with Pydantic by installing an additional plugin.

• PyCharm Pydantic Plugin

SDK Example Usage

Example 1

# Synchronous Example
from glean import Glean, models
import os


with Glean(
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    res = g_client.client.chat.create(messages=[
        {
            "fragments": [
                models.ChatMessageFragment(
                    text="What are the company holidays this year?",
                ),
            ],
        },
    ], timeout_millis=30000)

    # Handle response
    print(res)

The same SDK client can also be used to make asychronous requests by importing asyncio.

# Asynchronous Example
import asyncio
from glean import Glean, models
import os

async def main():

    async with Glean(
        api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
    ) as g_client:

        res = await g_client.client.chat.create_async(messages=[
            {
                "fragments": [
                    models.ChatMessageFragment(
                        text="What are the company holidays this year?",
                    ),
                ],
            },
        ], timeout_millis=30000)

        # Handle response
        print(res)

asyncio.run(main())

Example 2

# Synchronous Example
from glean import Glean, models
import os


with Glean(
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    res = g_client.client.chat.create_stream(messages=[
        {
            "fragments": [
                models.ChatMessageFragment(
                    text="What are the company holidays this year?",
                ),
            ],
        },
    ], timeout_millis=30000)

    # Handle response
    print(res)

The same SDK client can also be used to make asychronous requests by importing asyncio.

# Asynchronous Example
import asyncio
from glean import Glean, models
import os

async def main():

    async with Glean(
        api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
    ) as g_client:

        res = await g_client.client.chat.create_stream_async(messages=[
            {
                "fragments": [
                    models.ChatMessageFragment(
                        text="What are the company holidays this year?",
                    ),
                ],
            },
        ], timeout_millis=30000)

        # Handle response
        print(res)

asyncio.run(main())

Authentication

Per-Client Security Schemes

This SDK supports the following security scheme globally:

Name	Type	Scheme	Environment Variable
api_token	http	HTTP Bearer	GLEAN_API_TOKEN

To authenticate with the API the api_token parameter must be set when initializing the SDK client instance. For example:

from glean import Glean, models
from glean.utils import parse_datetime
import os


with Glean(
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    g_client.client.activity.report(events=[
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.HISTORICAL_VIEW,
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.SEARCH,
            "params": {
                "query": "query",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/search?q=query",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.VIEW,
            "params": {
                "duration": 20,
                "referrer": "https://example.com/document",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
    ])

    # Use the SDK ...

Authentication Methods

Glean supports different authentication methods depending on which API namespace you're using:

Client Namespace

The Client namespace supports two authentication methods:

1. Manually Provisioned API Tokens

   • Can be created by an Admin or a user with the API Token Creator role
   • Used for server-to-server integrations

2. OAuth

   • Requires OAuth setup to be completed by an Admin
   • Used for user-based authentication flows

Indexing Namespace

The Indexing namespace supports only one authentication method:

1. Manually Provisioned API Tokens
   • Can be created by an Admin or a user with the API Token Creator role
   • Used for secure document indexing operations

Important

Client tokens will not work for Indexing operations, and Indexing tokens will not work for Client operations. You must use the appropriate token type for the namespace you're accessing.

For more information on obtaining the appropriate token type, please contact your Glean administrator.

Available Resources and Operations

Available methods

client

client.activity

• report - Report document activity
• feedback - Report client activity

client.agents

• run - Runs an Agent.
• list - Lists all agents.
• retrieve_inputs - Gets the inputs to an agent.

client.announcements

• create - Create Announcement
• delete - Delete Announcement
• update - Update Announcement

client.answers

• create - Create Answer
• delete - Delete Answer
• update - Update Answer
• retrieve - Read Answer
• list - List Answers

client.authentication

• create_token - Create authentication token

client.chat

• create - Chat
• delete_all - Deletes all saved Chats owned by a user
• delete - Deletes saved Chats
• retrieve - Retrieves a Chat
• list - Retrieves all saved Chats
• retrieve_application - Gets the metadata for a custom Chat application
• upload_files - Upload files for Chat.
• retrieve_files - Get files uploaded by a user for Chat.
• delete_files - Delete files uploaded by a user for chat.
• create_stream - Chat

client.collections

• add_items - Add Collection item
• create - Create Collection
• delete - Delete Collection
• delete_item - Delete Collection item
• update - Update Collection
• update_item - Update Collection item
• retrieve - Read Collection
• list - List Collections

client.documents

• retrieve_permissions - Read document permissions
• retrieve - Read documents
• retrieve_by_facets - Read documents by facets
• summarize - Summarize documents

client.entities

• list - List entities
• read_people - Read people

client.insights

• retrieve - Read insights

client.messages

• retrieve - Read messages

client.pins

• update - Update pin
• retrieve - Read pin
• list - List pins
• create - Create pin
• remove - Delete pin

client.search

• query_as_admin - Search the index (admin)
• autocomplete - Autocomplete
• retrieve_feed - Feed of documents and events
• recommendations - Recommend documents
• query - Search

client.shortcuts

• create - Create shortcut
• delete - Delete shortcut
• retrieve - Read shortcut
• list - List shortcuts
• update - Update shortcut

client.verification

• add_reminder - Create verification
• list - List verifications
• verify - Update verification

indexing

indexing.authentication

• rotate_token - Rotate token

indexing.datasource

• status - Beta: Get datasource status

indexing.datasources

• add - Add or update datasource
• retrieve_config - Get datasource config

indexing.documents

• add_or_update - Index document

• index - Index documents

• bulk_index - Bulk index documents

• process_all - Schedules the processing of uploaded documents

• delete - Delete document

• debug - Beta: Get document information

• debug_many - Beta: Get information of a batch of documents

• check_access - Check document access

• status - Get document upload and indexing status ⚠️ Deprecated

• count - Get document count ⚠️ Deprecated

indexing.people

• debug - Beta: Get user information

• count - Get user count ⚠️ Deprecated

• index - Index employee

• bulk_index - Bulk index employees

• process_all_employees_and_teams - Schedules the processing of uploaded employees and teams

• delete - Delete employee

• index_team - Index team

• delete_team - Delete team

• bulk_index_teams - Bulk index teams

indexing.permissions

• update_permissions - Update document permissions
• index_user - Index user
• bulk_index_users - Bulk index users
• index_group - Index group
• bulk_index_groups - Bulk index groups
• index_membership - Index membership
• bulk_index_memberships - Bulk index memberships for a group
• process_memberships - Schedules the processing of group memberships
• delete_user - Delete user
• delete_group - Delete group
• delete_membership - Delete membership
• authorize_beta_users - Beta users

indexing.shortcuts

• bulk_index - Bulk index external shortcuts
• upload - Upload shortcuts

Retries

Some of the endpoints in this SDK support retries. If you use the SDK without any configuration, it will fall back to the default retry strategy provided by the API. However, the default retry strategy can be overridden on a per-operation basis, or across the entire SDK.

To change the default retry strategy for a single API call, simply provide a RetryConfig object to the call:

from glean import Glean, models
from glean.utils import BackoffStrategy, RetryConfig, parse_datetime
import os


with Glean(
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    g_client.client.activity.report(events=[
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.HISTORICAL_VIEW,
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.SEARCH,
            "params": {
                "query": "query",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/search?q=query",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.VIEW,
            "params": {
                "duration": 20,
                "referrer": "https://example.com/document",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
    ],
        RetryConfig("backoff", BackoffStrategy(1, 50, 1.1, 100), False))

    # Use the SDK ...

If you'd like to override the default retry strategy for all operations that support retries, you can use the retry_config optional parameter when initializing the SDK:

from glean import Glean, models
from glean.utils import BackoffStrategy, RetryConfig, parse_datetime
import os


with Glean(
    retry_config=RetryConfig("backoff", BackoffStrategy(1, 50, 1.1, 100), False),
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    g_client.client.activity.report(events=[
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.HISTORICAL_VIEW,
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.SEARCH,
            "params": {
                "query": "query",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/search?q=query",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.VIEW,
            "params": {
                "duration": 20,
                "referrer": "https://example.com/document",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
    ])

    # Use the SDK ...

Error Handling

All operations return a response object or raise an exception:

Status Code	Description	Error Type	Content Type
400	Invalid Request	errors.GleanError	*/*
401	Not Authorized	errors.GleanError	*/*
403	Permission Denied	errors.GleanDataError	application/json
408	Request Timeout	errors.GleanError	*/*
422	Invalid Query	errors.GleanDataError	application/json
429	Too Many Requests	errors.GleanError	*/*
4XX	Other Client Errors	errors.GleanError	*/*
5XX	Internal Server Errors	errors.GleanError	*/*

Example

from glean import Glean, errors, models
import os


with Glean(
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:
    try:
        res = g_client.client.search.execute(search_request=models.SearchRequest(
            tracking_token="trackingToken",
            page_size=10,
            query="vacation policy",
            request_options=models.SearchRequestOptions(
                facet_filters=[
                    models.FacetFilter(
                        field_name="type",
                        values=[
                            models.FacetFilterValue(
                                value="article",
                                relation_type=models.RelationType.EQUALS,
                            ),
                            models.FacetFilterValue(
                                value="document",
                                relation_type=models.RelationType.EQUALS,
                            ),
                        ],
                    ),
                    models.FacetFilter(
                        field_name="department",
                        values=[
                            models.FacetFilterValue(
                                value="engineering",
                                relation_type=models.RelationType.EQUALS,
                            ),
                        ],
                    ),
                ],
                facet_bucket_size=246815,
            ),
        ))
        
        # Handle response
        print(res)
    except errors.GleanError as e:
        print(e.message)
        print(e.status_code)
        print(e.raw_response)
        print(e.body)
     # If the server returned structured data
    except errors.GleanDataError as e:
        print(e.data)
        print(e.data.errorMessage)

By default, an API error will raise a errors.GleanError exception, which has the following properties:

Property	Type	Description
error.status_code	int	The HTTP status code
error.message	str	The error message
error.raw_response	httpx.Response	The raw HTTP response
error.body	str	The response content

Server Selection

Server Variables

The default server https://{domain}-be.glean.com contains variables and is set to https://domain-be.glean.com by default. To override default values, the following parameters are available when initializing the SDK client instance:

Variable	Parameter	Default	Description
domain	domain: str	"domain"	Email domain (without extension) that determines the deployment backend.

Example

from glean import Glean, models
from glean.utils import parse_datetime
import os


with Glean(
    domain="scared-pearl.biz"
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    g_client.client.activity.report(events=[
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.HISTORICAL_VIEW,
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.SEARCH,
            "params": {
                "query": "query",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/search?q=query",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.VIEW,
            "params": {
                "duration": 20,
                "referrer": "https://example.com/document",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
    ])

    # Use the SDK ...

Override Server URL Per-Client

The default server can be overridden globally by passing a URL to the server_url: str optional parameter when initializing the SDK client instance. For example:

from glean import Glean, models
from glean.utils import parse_datetime
import os


with Glean(
    server_url="https://domain-be.glean.com",
    api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) as g_client:

    g_client.client.activity.report(events=[
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.HISTORICAL_VIEW,
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.SEARCH,
            "params": {
                "query": "query",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/search?q=query",
        },
        {
            "action": models.ActivityEventAction.VIEW,
            "params": {
                "duration": 20,
                "referrer": "https://example.com/document",
            },
            "timestamp": parse_datetime("2000-01-23T04:56:07.000Z"),
            "url": "https://example.com/",
        },
    ])

    # Use the SDK ...

Custom HTTP Client

The Python SDK makes API calls using the httpx HTTP library. In order to provide a convenient way to configure timeouts, cookies, proxies, custom headers, and other low-level configuration, you can initialize the SDK client with your own HTTP client instance. Depending on whether you are using the sync or async version of the SDK, you can pass an instance of HttpClient or AsyncHttpClient respectively, which are Protocol's ensuring that the client has the necessary methods to make API calls. This allows you to wrap the client with your own custom logic, such as adding custom headers, logging, or error handling, or you can just pass an instance of httpx.Client or httpx.AsyncClient directly.

For example, you could specify a header for every request that this sdk makes as follows:

from glean import Glean
import httpx

http_client = httpx.Client(headers={"x-custom-header": "someValue"})
s = Glean(client=http_client)

or you could wrap the client with your own custom logic:

from glean import Glean
from glean.httpclient import AsyncHttpClient
import httpx

class CustomClient(AsyncHttpClient):
    client: AsyncHttpClient

    def __init__(self, client: AsyncHttpClient):
        self.client = client

    async def send(
        self,
        request: httpx.Request,
        *,
        stream: bool = False,
        auth: Union[
            httpx._types.AuthTypes, httpx._client.UseClientDefault, None
        ] = httpx.USE_CLIENT_DEFAULT,
        follow_redirects: Union[
            bool, httpx._client.UseClientDefault
        ] = httpx.USE_CLIENT_DEFAULT,
    ) -> httpx.Response:
        request.headers["Client-Level-Header"] = "added by client"

        return await self.client.send(
            request, stream=stream, auth=auth, follow_redirects=follow_redirects
        )

    def build_request(
        self,
        method: str,
        url: httpx._types.URLTypes,
        *,
        content: Optional[httpx._types.RequestContent] = None,
        data: Optional[httpx._types.RequestData] = None,
        files: Optional[httpx._types.RequestFiles] = None,
        json: Optional[Any] = None,
        params: Optional[httpx._types.QueryParamTypes] = None,
        headers: Optional[httpx._types.HeaderTypes] = None,
        cookies: Optional[httpx._types.CookieTypes] = None,
        timeout: Union[
            httpx._types.TimeoutTypes, httpx._client.UseClientDefault
        ] = httpx.USE_CLIENT_DEFAULT,
        extensions: Optional[httpx._types.RequestExtensions] = None,
    ) -> httpx.Request:
        return self.client.build_request(
            method,
            url,
            content=content,
            data=data,
            files=files,
            json=json,
            params=params,
            headers=headers,
            cookies=cookies,
            timeout=timeout,
            extensions=extensions,
        )

s = Glean(async_client=CustomClient(httpx.AsyncClient()))

Resource Management

The Glean class implements the context manager protocol and registers a finalizer function to close the underlying sync and async HTTPX clients it uses under the hood. This will close HTTP connections, release memory and free up other resources held by the SDK. In short-lived Python programs and notebooks that make a few SDK method calls, resource management may not be a concern. However, in longer-lived programs, it is beneficial to create a single SDK instance via a context manager and reuse it across the application.

from glean import Glean
import os
def main():

    with Glean(
        api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
    ) as g_client:
        # Rest of application here...


# Or when using async:
async def amain():

    async with Glean(
        api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
    ) as g_client:
        # Rest of application here...

Debugging

You can setup your SDK to emit debug logs for SDK requests and responses.

You can pass your own logger class directly into your SDK.

from glean import Glean
import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)
s = Glean(debug_logger=logging.getLogger("glean"))

You can also enable a default debug logger by setting an environment variable GLEAN_DEBUG to true.

Development

Maturity

This SDK is in beta, and there may be breaking changes between versions without a major version update. Therefore, we recommend pinning usage to a specific package version. This way, you can install the same version each time without breaking changes unless you are intentionally looking for the latest version.

Contributions

While we value open-source contributions to this SDK, this library is generated programmatically. Any manual changes added to internal files will be overwritten on the next generation. We look forward to hearing your feedback. Feel free to open a PR or an issue with a proof of concept and we'll do our best to include it in a future release.

SDK Created by Speakeasy