---
title: "Decode internal jargon without asking around - Atlan MCP Cookbook"
url: "https://atlan.com/mcp-cookbook/decode-internal-jargon-against-the-glossary/"
description: "Check whether an internal acronym or jargon term already has a governed definition before you interrupt five people on Slack to ask."
---

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Recipe 24 in [The Atlan MCP Cookbook](https://atlan.com/mcp-cookbook/). Check whether an internal acronym or jargon term already has a governed definition before you interrupt five people on Slack to ask.

Use case: Find & understand data / Action: Look up / Persona: Data/Business User, Data/BI Analyst, AI Builder / Effort: Quick / Runs in: any AI tool

Requires Atlan MCP connected to your AI tool: [set up Atlan MCP](https://docs.atlan.com/product/capabilities/atlan-ai/how-tos/remote-mcp-overview).

## 1. The task

**Scenario.** A new analyst opens a ticket that references a validation rule called "DQ-17" and a system nickname "falcon", with no explanation attached. The instinct is to ask around on Slack, which means waiting on five people who are each half-sure of the answer. Most of the time, someone already wrote the real definition down; it's just not where you'd think to look.

The ask:
- Whether the term already has a governed definition, searched by the literal string and by the concept behind it
- The full definition and the team that owns it
- The assets the term is linked to, so you can see where it's actually applied

Hero prompt: "What does 'DQ-17' mean? Check if there's already a governed definition for it before I ask anyone."

Step by step:

1. Search for the term and the concept behind it. Prompt: "Search the glossary for [DQ-17] - both the exact string as it appears in the ticket and the full-word expansion or business concept it likely stands for - and show every governed definition that could match."
2. Pull the full definition and its owner. Prompt: "For the closest match, give me the full definition and the team that owns it, so I get the real answer, not just that something exists."
3. See where it's actually used. Prompt: "Show me the assets that term is linked to, so I can see where [DQ-17] is applied in practice, not just how it's defined."

## 2. What you'll give it

Required context:
- The exact acronym or phrase, copied as written
- Where it appeared (ticket, doc, code comment), for context if the search comes back ambiguous

Optional context:
- The team or domain it likely came from, to narrow the search faster

## 3. What Atlan creates

Outputs:
- The resolved definition and the team that owns it, if one exists
- The assets the term is linked to, so you can see where it's actually applied
- A clear "not documented yet" signal if it genuinely isn't defined anywhere

**Summary.** You either get the real answer in under a minute, or you get clear confirmation that this is genuinely undocumented and worth flagging, instead of guessing from context.

**Read-only.** Read-only. Nothing is written; if it turns out to be undocumented, that's a separate follow-up to actually create the term.

## 4. Follow-up prompts

- **Close the gap:** "It's undocumented, create the glossary term for it now so the next person doesn't hit this wall."
- **Do the whole ticket:** "Check every acronym in this whole ticket at once, not one at a time."
- **Make it a standing check:** "Run this against the onboarding runbook before the next new hire starts."

## 5. Tips & troubleshooting

**Cook's note.** Internal jargon rarely matches its governed name word for word, which is why step 1 asks for the concept as well as the literal string. If both still come back empty, that's a real answer - the term genuinely isn't documented, and that's worth flagging rather than guessing from context.

- Match the client to the work.** Any client works; this is a fast lookup you'll usually run mid-conversation, not a dedicated session.
- Automate or chain it.** Chain this across a whole ticket or runbook in one pass instead of decoding each acronym as you hit it.
- Recheck on old docs.** Definitions get renamed or retired. If the doc you're reading is old, treat a stale match as a prompt to confirm it's still current, not the final answer.

## Related recipes

- [Grow your business glossary](https://atlan.com/mcp-cookbook/grow-your-business-glossary/): Bootstrap glossary terms from how your assets already use business concepts.
- [Give one concept one trusted definition](https://atlan.com/mcp-cookbook/reconcile-terminology-across-systems/): Confirm whether two differently-named fields or terms mean the same thing, then link them under one governed definition so the next person searching either name lands in the same place.
- [Understand how a metric is calculated](https://atlan.com/mcp-cookbook/understand-how-a-metric-is-calculated/): Get the governed definition of a metric - and where it's documented - without asking a data engineer.

[Browse all recipes](https://atlan.com/mcp-cookbook/) / [Set up Atlan MCP](https://docs.atlan.com/product/capabilities/atlan-ai/how-tos/remote-mcp-overview)