How to Add a Comment to a Table in Snowflake
Last updated July 24, 2026 · By the SaturnSQL team
Use COMMENT ON TABLE (or COLUMN) to attach documentation that shows up in SHOW TABLES, DESCRIBE, and most catalog tools. Comments can also be set inline in CREATE TABLE.
Comments are the cheapest documentation available, since they live with the object and travel to anything reading the catalog, including dbt docs and most BI tools. Setting one modifies no data and needs no running warehouse. Passing an empty string clears an existing comment.
COMMENT ON TABLE orders IS 'One row per customer order, updated hourly';
COMMENT ON COLUMN orders.amount IS 'Order total in EUR incl. VAT';Read comments back
Reading comments back from information_schema is how you audit coverage: change the filter to comment IS NULL to list everything still undocumented. Column comments live in information_schema.columns rather than .tables. SHOW TABLES also returns a comment column if you only want a quick look.
SELECT table_name, comment
FROM analytics.information_schema.tables
WHERE comment IS NOT NULL;Run this in SaturnSQL
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