Event and property descriptions

You can add or edit the description for an event or property to help other members of your organization understand what an event or property represents.

Add a description to an event

To add a description to an event, follow these steps:

1. Go to Events and click the name of the event you want to add a description to.
2. In the flyout that appears, click Add a description (under Details).
3. Type a description of the event and click Apply.

Add a description to an event property

You can change the description for an event property in two ways. Because the same event property can apply to multiple event types, you can add a description for the global event property and for the specific event-to-event property pair. If the event property description specific to an event doesn't exist, the description defaults to the global event property description.

• To change the description for an event property specific to an event, navigate to Events and click the event name to open the Details panel. Type a description where it says Add a description, and click Apply to save.
• To change the global description for an event property, navigate to Properties > Event Properties and click the event property name to open the Details panel. Type a description where it says Add a description, and click Apply to save.

Add a description to a user or group property

You can change the description for a user property or a group property by navigating to Properties > User Properties or Properties > Group Properties. Click the property name to open the Details panel. Type a description where it says Add a description, and click Apply to save.

AI-generated descriptions

On paid plans, Amplitude generates suggested descriptions for events, event properties, and user properties. Suggestions appear in the description area of the details panel. Amplitude doesn't save the suggestion to the description automatically, and any existing description stays visible until you take action on the suggestion.

Where descriptions come from

Amplitude draws from two sources:

• Uploaded files: Files you upload to a project under Settings > AI Controls, such as a data dictionary or a product spec. Amplitude treats these as the most authoritative source and prefers them over everything else. Refer to file uploads for details.
• Project data: The project's own Amplitude data, including the event or property name, any existing description, how it's used across the project, and the values it takes.

Amplitude only suggests a description it can trace back to one of these sources. An event or property with thin usage and no matching file gets no suggestion, because an empty description is more useful than a vague one.

Only files scoped to a project describe that project's events and properties. Organization-level files support other Amplitude AI features but don't feed event or property descriptions. After you upload a file to a project, descriptions for that project refresh within a few minutes.

Upload a data dictionary

For the best results, upload a data dictionary to your project. A data dictionary is a document that lays out the project's taxonomy: its events, the properties on those events, and what each means. Amplitude relies on it more heavily than on anything it can infer from usage data alone, so projects with a data dictionary get noticeably better suggestions than ones without.

Amplitude matches files to events and properties by name. A data dictionary row for Order Placed describes that event. For properties, type also matters. A row documenting a user property doesn't apply to an event property with the same name.

Where suggestions appear

Suggestions appear in two places:

• In Data: Go to Events or Properties and select an event or property. The suggestion appears in the Description field in the details panel. Suggestions never appear in the Events or Properties tables, only in the details panel.
• In chart dropdowns: When you pick an event or property for a chart, the suggestion appears in the details panel next to the list. Some dropdowns are read-only. In those cases, accept or decline the suggestion from Data.

Identify a suggestion

A suggestion looks different from a manually written description:

• Suggestions have a dotted underline. A description someone wrote doesn't.
• Hovering over the underlined text opens a tooltip naming the source: the uploaded file it came from (all files, if more than one contributed), or "Amplitude charts, dashboards, and product metadata" when it came from the project's Amplitude data alone.
• The appearance depends on what's already in the description field. With no existing description, the suggested text appears on its own. When the existing description is incomplete, Amplitude suggests text that fills the gap and keeps the original, adding the new part as a second paragraph. When Amplitude suggests a full replacement, it strikes through the current text and shows the replacement after it.

Act on a suggestion

To review a suggestion:

1. Select the suggestion to open an editor holding the suggested text.
2. Do one of the following:
   • Select Apply to accept the text as-is.
   • Edit the text, then select Apply to accept a modified version.
   • Select Revert to decline the suggestion and keep the original description.
   • Select Cancel to leave everything as-is for now.

Once you accept or decline a suggestion, it doesn't come back. Amplitude already uses the suggested text for search and other AI features before anyone reviews it, so accepting confirms it rather than turns it on.

Amplitude doesn't generate suggestions for events and properties it defines itself, for custom events, or for transformations. If an event property has an override on a specific event, Amplitude only suggests a description when that override has no description yet. Accepting writes the override, not the shared property description.