## Business Graph introduction

URL: https://docs.atlan.com/product/capabilities/build-apps/sdks/python/glossary/how-tos

> Create, manage, and organize glossary assets including glossaries, categories, and terms using the Atlan Python SDK (pyatlan).

# Business Graph introduction

Operations on glossary assets (glossaries, categories, terms).

> **Tip: Glossaries are a container for both terms and categories**
>
> Terms and categories can only exist within a glossary. So a glossary must first exist, before you can create a term or category. This also means that if you delete a glossary, all of the terms and categories within that glossary are also deleted.
>
> Note as well that terms are *not* contained within categories. Categories are simply a mechanism to organize terms in Atlan. This means that deleting a category will *not* delete the terms related to it.

```mermaid
erDiagram
 Business Graph ||--o{ GlossaryCategory : contains
 Business Graph ||--o{ GlossaryTerm : contains
```

Each glossary object *mostly* behaves like other assets in Atlan. You can [create](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/governance/glossary/create-glossary-objects/llms.txt), [retrieve](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/governance/glossary/retrieve-by-name/llms.txt), [update](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/update-asset/llms.txt), [delete](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/delete-asset/llms.txt), [restore](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/restore-asset/llms.txt), [view history](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/review-asset-history/llms.txt), [search](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/search-assets/llms.txt), and [combine operations](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/combine-operations/llms.txt) using the same patterns as for any other asset.

> **Warning: Unique characteristics of glossary objects**
>
> There are, however, a few points that are unique to glossary objects compared to other asset types:
>
> - The [qualifiedNames](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/build-your-first-metadata-workflow/llms.txt) of all glossary objects are a hashed string. This isn't human-readable. All other asset types have qualifiedNames that are human-readable. We've provided [helper methods](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/governance/glossary/retrieve-by-name/llms.txt) specifically for retrieval of glossary assets by their human-readable names.
> - When [updating](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/update-asset/llms.txt) a contained glossary object (term or category), you must provide details about the parent glossary of that object. You can update all other asset types without re-specifying their parent object.
>
> As a result, the `creator()` and `updater()` builder methods for terms and categories require extra parameters to specify the glossary.

The other difference that exists in interacting with glossaries is the common need to [traverse](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/governance/glossary/traverse-hierarchy/llms.txt) their hierarchy of categories.

_Last updated: 18 May 2026._

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