The Governance by design toolkit is a set of complementary features that embed intelligent, automated assistance directly into the data steward's workflow. Rather than relying on manual discipline and institutional knowledge to maintain metadata quality and governance standards, the toolkit makes good governance the path of least resistance, guiding stewards through the process, enforcing quality standards automatically, and reducing the effort required to create and maintain high-quality content.
The toolkit includes three features that work together:
- Lifecycle management
- Guides assets through a defined governance process from creation to publication.
- Smart checks
- Enforce metadata quality standards automatically, in real time.
- AI writing assistant
- Generates draft content to help stewards create high-quality descriptions and metadata faster.
Lifecycle management
Lifecycle management provides a structured governance process for assets, guiding them through defined stages from creation to publication. Quality gates, including smart checks, can be configured as required activities at each stage, ensuring that assets meet the required standards before they advance. As of the 2026.06 release, Lifecycle management is extended to all asset types.
Smart checks
Smart checks provide automated, real-time validation of asset attributes and relations. Quality standards are enforced directly on the asset page. Stewards see exactly what is failing and can fix it inline, without navigating to a separate quality screen or running a manual validation process.
AI writing assistant
The AI writing assistant provides AI-powered content generation directly on the asset page. It helps stewards create high-quality descriptions, definitions, and other metadata by generating draft content for review and refinement, reducing the effort required to populate assets from scratch and improving content consistency across your data catalog.
How the features work together
Each feature solves a distinct part of the stewardship problem, but they are designed to complement each other as part of a single, end-to-end governance experience. A steward opens an asset, uses the AI writing assistant to create a strong description, smart checks validate that the content meets the required standard, and Lifecycle management ensures the asset cannot be published until all quality gates are passed.
| Challenge | Feature | How it helps |
|---|---|---|
| Content is missing or does not meet quality standards. | smart checks | Enforces quality standards automatically. Stewards see exactly what is failing and can fix it inline, in real time. |
| Content is difficult to create from scratch, leading to incomplete or inconsistent metadata. | AI Writing Assistant | Generates draft content for the steward to review and refine, removing the blank-page problem and improving consistency. |
| There is no structured process to guide assets from creation to publication. | Lifecycle management | Provides a defined path from creation to publication, with smart checks as automated quality gates at each stage. |