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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 namespacefromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportoswithGlean(api_token="client-token", server_url="https://mycompany-be.glean.com") asglean:
search_response=glean.client.search.query(query="search term")
print(search_response)
# Example of accessing Indexing namespace fromglean.api_clientimportGlean, modelsimportoswithGlean(api_token="indexing-token", server_url="https://mycompany-be.glean.com") asglean:
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

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",# ]# ///fromglean.api_clientimportGleansdk=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.

SDK Example Usage

Example 1

# Synchronous Examplefromglean.api_clientimportGlean, modelsimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.client.chat.create(messages=[
{
"fragments": [
models.ChatMessageFragment(
text="What are the company holidays this year?",
),
],
},
], timeout_millis=30000)
# Handle responseprint(res)

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

# Asynchronous Exampleimportasynciofromglean.api_clientimportGlean, modelsimportosasyncdefmain():
asyncwithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=awaitglean.client.chat.create_async(messages=[
{
"fragments": [
models.ChatMessageFragment(
text="What are the company holidays this year?",
),
],
},
], timeout_millis=30000)
# Handle responseprint(res)
asyncio.run(main())

Example 2

# Synchronous Examplefromglean.api_clientimportGlean, modelsimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.client.chat.create_stream(messages=[
{
"fragments": [
models.ChatMessageFragment(
text="What are the company holidays this year?",
),
],
},
], timeout_millis=30000)
# Handle responseprint(res)

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

# Asynchronous Exampleimportasynciofromglean.api_clientimportGlean, modelsimportosasyncdefmain():
asyncwithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=awaitglean.client.chat.create_stream_async(messages=[
{
"fragments": [
models.ChatMessageFragment(
text="What are the company holidays this year?",
),
],
},
], timeout_millis=30000)
# Handle responseprint(res)
asyncio.run(main())

Authentication

Per-Client Security Schemes

This SDK supports the following security scheme globally:

NameTypeSchemeEnvironment Variable
api_tokenhttpHTTP BearerGLEAN_API_TOKEN

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

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.agents.search(name="HR Policy Agent")
# Handle responseprint(res)

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

Agents

Chat

  • create - Create a chat response

Client.Activity

Client.Agents

Client.Announcements

Client.Answers

Client.Authentication

Client.Chat

Client.Collections

Client.Datasources

Client.Documents

Client.Entities

Client.Governance.Data.Findings

  • create - Creates findings export
  • list - Lists findings exports
  • download - Downloads findings export
  • delete - Deletes findings export

Client.Governance.Data.Policies

  • retrieve - Gets specified policy
  • update - Updates an existing policy
  • list - Lists policies
  • create - Creates new policy
  • download - Downloads violations CSV for policy

Client.Governance.Data.Reports

  • create - Creates new one-time report
  • download - Downloads violations CSV for report
  • status - Fetches report run status

Client.Governance.Documents.Visibilityoverrides

  • list - Fetches documents visibility
  • create - Hide or unhide docs

Client.Insights

Client.Messages

Client.Pins

Client.Search

Client.Shortcuts

Client.Tools

Client.Verification

Indexing.Authentication

Indexing.CustomMetadata

Indexing.Datasource

  • status - Beta: Get datasource status

Indexing.Datasources

Indexing.Documents

Indexing.People

Indexing.Permissions

Indexing.Shortcuts

Search

Skills

File uploads

Certain SDK methods accept file objects as part of a request body or multi-part request. It is possible and typically recommended to upload files as a stream rather than reading the entire contents into memory. This avoids excessive memory consumption and potentially crashing with out-of-memory errors when working with very large files. The following example demonstrates how to attach a file stream to a request.

Tip

For endpoints that handle file uploads bytes arrays can also be used. However, using streams is recommended for large files.

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.skills.create(file={
"file_name": "example.file",
"content": open("example.file", "rb"),
})
# Handle responseprint(res)

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:

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanfromglean.api_client.utilsimportBackoffStrategy, RetryConfigimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.agents.search(name="HR Policy Agent",
RetryConfig("backoff", BackoffStrategy(1, 50, 1.1, 100), False))
# Handle responseprint(res)

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:

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanfromglean.api_client.utilsimportBackoffStrategy, RetryConfigimportoswithGlean(
retry_config=RetryConfig("backoff", BackoffStrategy(1, 50, 1.1, 100), False),
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.agents.search(name="HR Policy Agent")
# Handle responseprint(res)

Error Handling

All operations return a response object or raise an exception:

Status CodeDescriptionError TypeContent Type
400Invalid Requesterrors.GleanError*/*
401Not Authorizederrors.GleanError*/*
403Permission Deniederrors.GleanDataErrorapplication/json
408Request Timeouterrors.GleanError*/*
422Invalid Queryerrors.GleanDataErrorapplication/json
429Too Many Requestserrors.GleanError*/*
4XXOther Client Errorserrors.GleanError*/*
5XXInternal Server Errorserrors.GleanError*/*

Example

fromglean.api_clientimportGlean, errors, modelsimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asg_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 responseprint(res)
excepterrors.GleanErrorase:
print(e.message)
print(e.status_code)
print(e.raw_response)
print(e.body)
# If the server returned structured dataexcepterrors.GleanDataErrorase:
print(e.data)
print(e.data.errorMessage)

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

PropertyTypeDescription
error.status_codeintThe HTTP status code
error.messagestrThe error message
error.raw_responsehttpx.ResponseThe raw HTTP response
error.bodystrThe response content

Server Selection

Server Variables

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

VariableParameterDefaultDescription
instanceinstance: str"instance-name"The instance name (typically the email domain without the TLD) that determines the deployment backend.

Example

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportoswithGlean(
server_idx=0,
instance="instance-name",
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.agents.search(name="HR Policy Agent")
# Handle responseprint(res)

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:

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportoswithGlean(
server_url="https://instance-name-be.glean.com",
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.agents.search(name="HR Policy Agent")
# Handle responseprint(res)

Override Server URL Per-Operation

The server URL can also be overridden on a per-operation basis, provided a server list was specified for the operation. For example:

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportoswithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
res=glean.indexing.datasources.submit(datasource_instance="<value>", type_="<value>", request_body={
"key": "<value>",
"key1": "<value>",
"key2": "<value>",
}, server_url="https://instance-name-be.glean.com")
# Handle responseprint(res)

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:

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

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

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanfromglean.api_client.httpclientimportAsyncHttpClientimporthttpxclassCustomClient(AsyncHttpClient):
client: AsyncHttpClientdef__init__(self, client: AsyncHttpClient):
self.client=clientasyncdefsend(
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"returnawaitself.client.send(
request, stream=stream, auth=auth, follow_redirects=follow_redirects
)
defbuild_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:
returnself.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.

fromglean.api_clientimportGleanimportosdefmain():
withGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
# Rest of application here...# Or when using async:asyncdefamain():
asyncwithGlean(
api_token=os.getenv("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
) asglean:
# 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.

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

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

Experimental Features and Deprecation Testing

The SDK provides options to test upcoming API changes before they become the default behavior. This is useful for:

  • Testing experimental features before they are generally available
  • Preparing for deprecations by excluding deprecated endpoints ahead of their removal

Configuration Options

You can configure these options either via environment variables or SDK constructor options:

Using Environment Variables

importos# Set environment variables before initializing the SDKos.environ["X_GLEAN_EXCLUDE_DEPRECATED_AFTER"] ="2026-10-15"os.environ["X_GLEAN_INCLUDE_EXPERIMENTAL"] ="true"fromglean.api_clientimportGleanglean=Glean(
api_token=os.environ.get("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
server_url="https://mycompany-be.glean.com",
)

Using SDK Constructor Options

importosfromglean.api_clientimportGleanglean=Glean(
api_token=os.environ.get("GLEAN_API_TOKEN", ""),
server_url="https://mycompany-be.glean.com",
exclude_deprecated_after="2026-10-15",
include_experimental=True,
)

Option Reference

OptionEnvironment VariableTypeDescription
exclude_deprecated_afterX_GLEAN_EXCLUDE_DEPRECATED_AFTERstr (date)Exclude API endpoints that will be deprecated after this date (format: YYYY-MM-DD). Use this to test your integration against upcoming deprecations.
include_experimentalX_GLEAN_INCLUDE_EXPERIMENTALboolWhen True, enables experimental API features that are not yet generally available. Use this to preview and test new functionality.

Note

Environment variables take precedence over SDK constructor options when both are set.

Warning

Experimental features may change or be removed without notice. Do not rely on experimental features in production environments.

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

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The official Python library for the Glean API

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