DESCRIBE POLICY

Applies to: check marked yes Databricks SQL check marked yes Databricks Runtime 16.4 and above check marked yes Unity Catalog only

Shows the details of a policy as property-value pairs.

To run this statement, you must have the READ METADATA or MANAGE privilege on the target securable, or own it. READ METADATA grants read-only visibility into the policy; MANAGE or ownership is still required to create, edit, or delete policies. To describe a policy ON METASTORE (Beta), you must have READ METADATA on the metastore or be a metastore admin.

Syntax

{ DESC | DESCRIBE } POLICY policy_name ON { METASTORE | CATALOG catalog_name | SCHEMA schema_name | TABLE table_name }

Parameters

  • policy_name

    The name of the policy to describe. If the policy does not exist on the securable, Azure Databricks raises POLICY_NOT_FOUND.

  • catalog_name

    The name of the catalog on which the policy is defined.

  • schema_name

    The name of the schema on which the policy is defined.

  • table_name

    The name of the table on which the policy is defined.

Result

The statement returns a formatted report. The fields included depend on the policy type. Fields that are not set on the policy are omitted. Governed Tags lists the governed tag references used by the policy as comma-separated entries: key for a key-only reference and key:value when the policy references a specific tag value.

Examples

> DESCRIBE POLICY rf ON TABLE datagov.test.orders;

Name                    rf
On Securable Type       TABLE
On Securable            datagov.test.orders
To Principals           account users
For Securable Type      TABLE
Match Columns           has_tag('priority') AS u1
Policy Type             ROW_FILTER
  Function Name         datagov.test.hide_urgent_orders
  Using Columns         u1
Created By              user@example.com
Created At              2025-12-31 AD at 19:41:07 UTC
Updated By              user@example.com
Updated At              2026-01-01 AD at 22:01:17 UTC
Governed Tags           priority

The following example describes an ABAC GRANT policy, which reports the target securable type and the granted privileges:

> DESCRIBE POLICY grant_anthropic_model_services ON SCHEMA system.ai;

Name                    grant_anthropic_model_services
On Securable Type       SCHEMA
On Securable            system.ai
Comment                 Grant EXECUTE on Anthropic model services
To Principals           data_scientists
Except Principals       contractors
For Securable Type      MODEL_SERVICE
When Condition          has_tag_value('ai.model_creator', 'anthropic')
Policy Type             GRANT
  Granted Privileges    EXECUTE
Created By              user@example.com
Created At              2026-08-26 AD at 14:02:11 UTC
Updated By              user@example.com
Updated At              2026-08-26 AD at 14:02:11 UTC
Governed Tags           ai.model_creator:anthropic
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