Shanc vs Glean

Glean finds what's written down. Shanc documents what isn't.

Glean is enterprise search — it indexes your documents and apps and surfaces the right passage. Shanc builds the data documentation that doesn't exist yet, from your schema and code, and serves an agent a layer it can actually query.

Try Shanc

Side by side

ShancGlean

Maps your data modelYes — schema, logs, codeNo — indexes documents and apps

Authors data documentationYes, automaticallyNo — surfaces what's already written

Keeps up withYour definitions, metrics and joinsYour files and content

Generates and validates SQLYesNo — returns relevant documents

Grounds an actual queryYes, over MCPBuilt for knowledge search, not querying

What's different

It documents the data, not just the docs

Glean surfaces what someone already wrote down — so undocumented logic stays invisible. Shanc reads the schema, query logs and code and authors the documentation itself, including the definitions nobody got around to writing.

Built to be queried, not read

Glean returns relevant passages for a person to read. Shanc serves a structured layer an agent queries to generate SQL — a different job, aimed at data questions rather than document lookup.

It grounds the answer, not just retrieves the source

Glean can find the doc that mentions a metric. It can't check that an agent's query uses that metric correctly. Shanc validates the query against the layer before it runs, so the number is grounded, not just adjacent to a relevant file.

Tracks the data, not the file

Glean keeps up with your content as files change. Shanc keeps up with your data — schema, joins, metric definitions — the things a data answer actually depends on.