# Alation (slim)

> Alation is a hosted data catalogue for tables, queries, BI reports, lineage and data quality. Agents reach it through REST APIs, a natural-language Aggregated Context API, a Python agent SDK and an MCP server on each cloud instance.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.md (~8,350 tokens) · this version ~1,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

**C · 60.3/100 · rank #472 of 842 · #7 in Company knowledge & data catalogues · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: Each API has an OpenAPI 3.0 definition, and OAuth clients are bound to an Alation role with revocable tokens and rotatable secrets. Access needs a sales contract, since no price, trial or self-serve sign-up is published. The agent SDK and local MCP server have stayed at a release candidate since 14 January 2026.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: Alation, Inc. · category: Company knowledge & data catalogues · legal entity: Alation, Inc. · provenance 86/100
- Local only (HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio): pypi `alation-ai-agent-mcp`, pypi `alation-ai-agent-sdk`, pypi `allie-sdk`
- Auth: OAuth or key · pricing: Paid · x402: no · licence: Proprietary service under Alation's Master Cloud Software Licence and Services Agreement. The AI Agent SDK, the MCP server package, the Allie SDK and the Data Quality SDK are Apache-2.0
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- APIs: REST APIs under `/integration/v1` and `/integration/v2` for data sources, schemas, tables, columns, BI objects, lineage, documents, custom fields, search and data quality, the Aggregated Context API at `/integration/v2/context/`, and the Alation AI API under `/ai/api/v1`. About 380 reference pages on developer.alation.com
- MCP server: Remote at `https://<your_instance>/ai/mcp` on cloud instances, with tools listed per user. Local package `alation-ai-agent-mcp` over stdio or HTTP, 16 tools with 8 enabled by default, Python 3.10 or later
- Credentials: OAuth 2.0 client credentials (JWT Bearer, one role per client, revocable, rotatable secret), authorisation code flow with refresh tokens, or API keys in a `TOKEN` header (refresh token 60 days, access token 24 hours by default)
- Rate limits: AI API uses a two-tier token bucket with no numbers published. REST throttling is off by default and defaults to 20 requests a second for each API family when enabled, 100 a minute for document and folder writes. Aggregated Context API has a one-time quota of 2,000 calls
- Errors: Six-digit codes such as 429000 with a published table. AI API 429s carry `Retry-After`, `Ai-RateLimit-Limit`, `Ai-RateLimit-Remaining` and `Ai-RateLimit-Tier`
- Pagination: `limit` and `skip` with an `X-Next-Page` response header, 100 objects by default and 1,000 at most. The BI Source API uses `offset`, and the AI API uses `limit` and `offset`
- Pricing: Sales contract only. No published price, trial or self-serve sign-up found
- SLA and support: 99.5 per cent monthly uptime target with service credits of 1 to 5 per cent. Standard support answers a P1 within 4 hours, Mission Critical support within 1 hour, 24x7 for P1 and P2
- SDKs: `alation-ai-agent-sdk`, `alation-ai-agent-mcp` and `alation-ai-agent-langchain` 1.0.0rc3 (14 January 2026), `allie-sdk` 2.2.3 (25 May 2026), `alation-data-quality-sdk` 1.0.7 (14 May 2026), all Python and Apache-2.0
- Hosting: Alation Cloud Service on AWS in nine regions across the Americas, Canada, EMEA and APAC, with instances on alationcloud.com. Model calls for the Aggregated Context API route through Amazon Bedrock inference profiles within a region group
- Certifications: ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, SOC 2 Type 2 covering HIPAA and HITECH, per the security page dated July 2026. FedRAMP Moderate is being pursued
- Status: status.alationcloud.com on Atlassian Statuspage, with production and development components by region, plus a private status page for each customer

- Scores: Reliability 61, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 78, Agent ergonomics 71, Security & auth 63, Payments & pricing 0, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 71, Transparency & trust 76 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Hosted service, read on the hosted lines and graded on what an agent uses, the Alation Cloud Service REST APIs and the MCP server. · Schema & documentation, Every API has an OpenAPI 3.0 definition, printed in the Markdown copy of each reference page and served by each instance under `/openapi/`. · Agent ergonomics, The local MCP server registers 16 tools and enables 8 by default, with `--enabled-tools` and `--disabled-tools` lists, and the README says t… · Security & auth, OAuth 2.0 client credentials on Alation Cloud Service. · Payments & pricing, Hosted service, so the hosted rubric applies. · Maintenance & community, The status page shows the 2026.9.1.0 upgrade reaching US instances on 3 October 2026 (30). · Transparency & trust, Closed service under the published Master Cloud Software Licence and Services Agreement of 10 April 2026. The agent SDK and MCP server are A…
- Sources: 30, open questions: 10, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: data.catalogue, knowledge.search, data.lineage, db.sql
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alation.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/alation.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation from a page on alation.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/Alation/alation-ai-agent-sdk, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Ask a Server Admin to register an OAuth client application with the lowest role that fits. Only admins can create one, and the secret is shown once
2. Pin `alation-ai-agent-mcp==1.0.0rc3`. An unpinned install resolves to 0.12.0, which predates the catalogue search agent
3. Call `catalog_context_search_agent` for catalogue questions. `alation_context` is deprecated and its description tells models not to call it directly
4. Watch `X-Entitlement-Usage` on Aggregated Context API responses. The 2,000 free calls never reset, and a quota 429 is not retryable
5. Page with `limit` and `skip` and follow `X-Next-Page`. The BI Source API uses `offset`, and one call returns at most 1,000 objects

## Connect

```bash
uv pip install alation-ai-agent-mcp==1.0.0rc3
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/alation

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Atlan | B | 62.5 | data.catalogue, data.lineage, knowledge.search, db.sql | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/atlan.min.md |
| OpenMetadata | B | 66.6 | data.catalogue, data.lineage | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openmetadata.min.md |
| Marmot | B | 64.4 | data.catalogue, data.lineage | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/marmot.min.md |
| DataHub | C | 59.4 | data.catalogue, data.lineage | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/datahub.min.md |
| Supabase API + MCP | BB | 75.6 | db.sql | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/supabase-mcp.min.md |


## Panel reviews (0, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)