Managing custom entity types

This article explains how to manage custom entity types. For information on managing custom entities, refer to the documentation.

Viewing custom entity types

After creating a custom entity type, you can view or edit its schema, view a list of entities of the same type, and validate the schema of entities of that type.

1. From the main sidebar, expand Catalogs, then select All entities.

2. Select the Entity types tab.

3. Select an entity type. A list of associated entities is displayed.

4. Do any or all of the following:

   • Select an entity to view more information about it. Learn more about the health and incident columns in Step 3 of Searching across and filtering entities.

   • Select the Schema tab to copy the schema to your clipboard.

   • Select the Schema linter tab to validate the schema for a custom entity type. See Validating an entity schema for a custom entity type for more information.

   • Click Edit in the upper-right corner to edit the entity type's information and schema. Note that the Identifier field is uneditable.

   • Click the Overflow menu to delete the entity type.

Built-in entity types are marked with a Cortex logo. Hover over the logo to see a "Powered by Cortex" banner. Any other types in the list are custom entity types created for your workspace.

Validating an entity schema for a custom entity type

1. From the main sidebar, expand Catalogs, then select All entities.

2. Select the Entity types tab.

3. Select an entity type.

4. Select the Schema linter tab.

5. In the text editor, paste in your entity's JSON schema to verify that it's properly formatted for this entity type.

   • On the right side of the page, click Show example to see an example of how the schema should be formatted.

   • If you want to use the example as a starting point, click Copy example, then paste it into the text editor.

6. Click Validate Schema.

Using custom entity types or custom data

In some instances, you may want to use custom data instead of a custom entity type. This is recommended if you need more flexibility for these entity types; they may not always require specific metadata.

A custom entity type's metadata appears on an entity's details page, but custom data appears in the Custom Data sidebar.

It's possible to create an entity type with an empty properties schema:

{
  "type": "object",
    "required": []
    "properties": {}
}

This entity type appears in catalogs, but its entities are not validated against certain specs. Use custom data to define those properties instead.

Schemas enforce static properties consistently across all entities, while custom data lets users augment and update attributes as needed.