---
title: SHOW ABSTRACTIONS
url: https://nexyron.tech/docs/cypher/clauses/schema-and-admin/show-abstractions
description: SHOW ABSTRACTIONS lists the abstractions currently registered in the catalog. SHOW LENSES lists only LENS abstractions.
---

# SHOW ABSTRACTIONS

## Generic Description

`SHOW ABSTRACTIONS` lists the abstractions currently registered in the catalog. `SHOW LENSES` lists only `LENS` abstractions.

Example:

```cypher
SHOW ABSTRACTIONS
```

```cypher
SHOW LENSES
```

## Consumer-Level Explanation

This is the discovery companion to `CREATE ABSTRACTION`. Use it to see which real abstraction names already exist before attaching features, interventions, scenarios, or knowledge assertions to them. Analysis runs, reports, and wiki pages are artifact records, so they are listed through the abstraction definition surfaces instead of `SHOW ABSTRACTIONS`.

## Conceptual Explanation

The abstraction catalog is the abstraction bridge between raw graph labels and higher-level modeling layers. `SHOW ABSTRACTIONS` is how you inspect that bridge directly from Cypher instead of hunting through application code or hidden metadata.

The returned columns are:

-   `name`
-   `kind`
-   `label`
-   `description`
-   `source_query`
-   `reverse_query`
-   `representation_query`
-   `tags`

## Advanced Example

```cypher
SHOW ABSTRACTIONS
```

To inspect durable user intent lenses only:

```cypher
SHOW LENSES
```

Then use the discovered names in later registry calls such as:

```cypher
CALL nexyron.feature_register({
  name: 'actor.days_since_last_visit',
  abstraction: 'Member',
  subject_type: 'ACTOR',
  grain: 'actor_day',
  output_type: 'FLOAT',
  as_of_mode: 'snapshot',
  refresh_mode: 'batch',
  query: 'MATCH (u:User) RETURN u.id AS subject_id, 1.0 AS value'
})
```

## Real Use Cases

-   Verifying that an abstraction was created in the expected schema namespace.
-   Auditing whether a graph already has abstractions before building feature definitions on top of it.
-   Checking which abstractions are actor-facing versus environment-facing.
-   Checking which lens abstractions already exist before creating a new assistant-generated investigation viewpoint.

## Real Limitations And Tradeoffs

-   `SHOW ABSTRACTIONS` only exposes catalog metadata; it does not show feature definitions, analysis-run artifacts, intervention definitions, or scenario overlays. Those use separate discovery clauses or procedures.
-   The result is intentionally simple. It is for discovery, not for full dependency introspection.