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Querying

Once metadata is attached to documents, it becomes available for search and retrieval through the standard Client API.

Each metadata key becomes a search facet of the form <groupName><keyName>. For example, given a group address with key country, this query returns documents tagged with USA:

addresscountry:USA

Facets follow standard Glean operator syntax and can be combined with other operators, including those produced by Custom Properties.

Full-text search​

When skipIndexing is false (the default), metadata values participate in full-text search. A document tagged with status: Approved matches a free-text query for Approved.

Setting skipIndexing: true keeps the value retrievable on the document but excludes it from full-text matching — useful for internal-only fields you don't want surfacing through generic queries.

Fetching metadata via Get Documents​

Use the Client API getDocuments endpoint to fetch all metadata attached to a document:

{
  "ids": ["gdrive_abc123"],
  "includeFields": ["CUSTOM_METADATA"]
}

Custom metadata is returned in Document.metadata.customData, alongside any datasource-native metadata fields (such as author).

Co-existence with Custom Properties​

A document can have both Custom Properties and Custom Metadata simultaneously. They appear alongside each other in faceted search and getDocuments responses, with independent lifecycles — re-indexing a document via the Indexing API does not affect its Custom Metadata. See Custom Properties vs Custom Metadata for a full comparison.