Attachments

The AttachmentLoader (and its async sibling AsyncAttachmentLoader) pulls records from the ServiceNow sys_attachment table. Each attachment row carries metadata about a file: its name, content type, size, and the parent record it belongs to (via table_name + table_sys_id).

Two access modes

The loader supports two ways of working with files:

1. Metadata only (default). Each SnowDocument describes one attachment without fetching its bytes. Pull binary content explicitly for the attachments you actually need via download() or download_to().

2. Eager download. Pass download=True and the loader fetches every file’s bytes during iteration, storing them under metadata["content_bytes"]. Use max_size_bytes to skip files above a given threshold.

Quick start

from snowloader import SnowConnection, AttachmentLoader

conn = SnowConnection(
    instance_url="https://mycompany.service-now.com",
    username="admin",
    password="password",
)

# Pull metadata for every KB attachment
loader = AttachmentLoader(
    connection=conn,
    query="table_name=kb_knowledge",
)
for doc in loader.lazy_load():
    print(doc.metadata["file_name"], doc.metadata["size_bytes"])

Download a specific file

from pathlib import Path

loader = AttachmentLoader(connection=conn, query="table_name=kb_knowledge")
first = next(iter(loader.lazy_load()))
loader.download_to(first.metadata["sys_id"], Path("./out") / first.metadata["file_name"])

Eager download with size cap

loader = AttachmentLoader(
    connection=conn,
    query="table_name=incident",
    download=True,
    max_size_bytes=10 * 1024 * 1024,  # skip files over 10 MB
)
for doc in loader.lazy_load():
    blob = doc.metadata.get("content_bytes")
    if blob is not None:
        process(doc.metadata["file_name"], blob)

Async usage

import asyncio
from snowloader import AsyncSnowConnection, AsyncAttachmentLoader

async def main() -> None:
    async with AsyncSnowConnection(
        instance_url="https://mycompany.service-now.com",
        username="admin",
        password="password",
    ) as conn:
        loader = AsyncAttachmentLoader(
            connection=conn,
            query="table_name=kb_knowledge",
            download=True,
        )
        docs = await loader.aload()

asyncio.run(main())

Document layout

Each SnowDocument produced by the attachment loader has:

• page_content: a short summary line including the file name, content type, size, and parent record

• metadata keys:

  • sys_id: the attachment’s own sys_id

  • file_name, content_type, size_bytes

  • table_name, table_sys_id: pointer to the parent record

  • download_url: full URL to the binary endpoint

  • content_bytes: present only when download=True and the file was within max_size_bytes

LangChain and LlamaIndex adapters

Both framework adapters include attachment variants:

from snowloader.adapters.langchain import ServiceNowAttachmentLoader
from snowloader.adapters.llamaindex import ServiceNowAttachmentReader

The async forms are AsyncServiceNowAttachmentLoader and AsyncServiceNowAttachmentReader.