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# Edit the description field

> Overview of the description field feature in Itential Gateway for managing persistent descriptions of roles, playbooks, and scripts.

The **Description** field lets you add and maintain a persistent description for roles, playbooks, and scripts. Use it to document purpose, usage context, or any other relevant metadata — particularly useful for knowledge transfer when onboarding users who need more context than a name alone provides.

## Edit the description field

The following example uses a playbook to illustrate how to access the **Description** field.

#### Navigate to Gateway

Navigate to Automation Gateway in your browser.

#### Select the playbook

Select the playbook from the left side navigation menu.

#### Open settings

Click the **Gear** icon in the upper-right corner of the canvas.

#### Add descriptive text

Add the descriptive text in the **Description** field. Click the **Save** button.

#### Modify the description

Click the **Edit** icon (pencil) under the Parameters heading to modify the descriptive text in the **Description** field.

## Description field examples

The following code examples show the **Description** field for playbooks, roles, and scripts as a metadata key value.

### Playbooks

This code sample shows the `"description"` field for playbooks.

```json
{
  "properties": {
    "SPECIFY_PROP_NAME_HERE": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE"
    }
  },
  "required": [],
  "metadata": {
    "description": ""
  }
}
```

### Roles

This code sample shows the `"description"` field for roles.

```json
{
  "properties": {},
  "required": [],
  "metadata": {
    "description": ""
  }
}
```

### Scripts

This code sample shows the `"description"` field for scripts.

```json
{
  "properties": {
    "argument_list": {
      "type": "array",
      "description": "Array of arguments to be passed to the script",
      "items": {
        "type": "string"
      }
    },
    "env_vars": {
      "type": "object",
      "description": "Object containing environment variables to be passed to script",
      "properties": {
        "env_list": {
          "type": "array",
          "description": "Array of environment variable 'name=value' pairs for script",
          "items": {
            "type": "string"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "script_argument_order": [
    "argument_list"
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "description": ""
  }
}
```

> Overview of the description field feature in Itential Gateway for managing persistent descriptions of roles, playbooks, and scripts.