Create a Custom Connector Gateway external content connector

Create a Custom Connector Gateway external content connector to index searchable content and security principals retrieved by your custom connector implementation.

Before you begin

A custom connector must already be implemented. To learn more about implementing your own custom connector, see Implementing a custom connector.

Your ServiceNow AI Platform® instance must have all the required plugins installed and must have the Hermes Messaging Service enabled. For details on configuring your instance to satisfy these prerequisites, see Configure your ServiceNow AI Platform instance to support the Custom Connector Gateway.

Role required: sn_ext_conn.xcc_admin

About this task

The Custom Connector Gateway external content connector feeds content and security principals retrieved by your custom connector to AI Search for indexing. After you have set up the Custom Connector Gateway connector, you can configure your custom connector to push retrieved data to it using the Custom Connector Gateway API.

If you're creating two or more Custom Connector Gateway connectors in a single instance, consider the following points.

Shared schema and indexed source

All Custom Connector Gateway connectors defined in your instance share the same schema and feed their content to the same indexed source. To distinguish individual connectors in your search applications' facet filters, you can create a separate search source for each connector. In each of these search sources, configure a filter condition based on the connector ID. To learn about search sources and their filter conditions, see Search sources in AI Search.
Per-connector user permission settings

Each Custom Connector Gateway connector has its own user permission settings. For details on configuring user permission settings, see Configure user mapping settings for an external content connector.
Per-connector analytics, events, and index inspector

Each Custom Connector Gateway connector records its own analytics and events. The index inspector tool only shows indexed results for the specific connector you select. To learn about connector analytics and events and the index inspector tool, see Reviewing external content connector crawl results and analytics.

Procedure

Navigate to All > External Content Connectors > External Content Admin Home.
If prompted to switch scope, select Switch scope and select the application scope specified in the prompt.
In the Connectors section, select Create.
On the Choose source page, select the Custom Connector Gateway tile, then select Next.

On the Connection settings page, fill in the connection settings.

Connection setting	Description
Connector name	Unique name for this Custom Connector Gateway external content connector.
I agree to the following disclaimer	Option acknowledging that you're responsible for the implementation, operation, and security of your custom connector.

Select Validate connection.
On the Schema page, perform these steps to extend the default schema used for all Custom Connector Gateway connectors.
1. Select Edit schema table.
  
  The Dictionary Entries table list view appears.
2. Select New.
3. On the Dictionary Entry form, fill in the fields.
4. Select Submit.
  
  The new custom field appears in the Dictionary Entries table list view.
5. Return to the connector creation page and select Next.
To use only fields from the default schema, skip this step (by selecting Skip). The default schema fields are displayed in the Default columns section of the Schema page. If metadata extracted by your custom connector matches one of the existing fields, map it to that field instead of creating a new field. This approach keeps naming consistent between connectors and avoids the overhead of extending the schema table.

Note: All Custom Connector Gateway external content connectors on your instance share a single schema. When making changes to the Custom Connector Gateway schema for a new connector, check that those changes don't affect the behavior of your existing Custom Connector Gateway connectors.
On the User mapping settings page, modify any default user mapping settings that you want to override for this connector.

If you want to skip this step for now, select Skip instead of Next. You can modify the user mapping settings for this connector from the External Content Admin Home page. For details on this procedure and user mapping settings, see Configure user mapping settings for an external content connector.
On the Connect search profile page, use the Connect to search profile field and Add button to add any search profiles that you want to connect this external content connector's default search source to, then select Save.

If you want to skip this step for now, select Skip instead of Next. You can connect search sources for this connector to search profiles from the External Content Admin Home page. For details on connecting an external content connector to search profiles, see Connect an external content connector to a search profile.

When you link a connector search source to a search profile in this step, the system automatically publishes the search profile to make the new link take effect.

Result

Your new external content connector appears in the Connectors list on the External Content Admin Home page.

What to do next

To feed content and security principals to AI Search for indexing, your custom connector must access the new connector via the Custom Connector Gateway API. To learn about the methods available in this API, see Custom Connector Gateway API.

To make content crawled by your new connector searchable in portals and search applications, you must link one of its search sources to the search profile used by each portal or search application. You can use the connector's default search source or create your own custom search sources.

Default search source

By default, the system creates a search source that includes all content from your external content connector's indexed source.
Custom search sources

You can create your own search sources with filters to specify which content from the connector's indexed source is searchable. To view the connector's indexed source, navigate to All > AI Search > AI Search Index > Indexed Sources. For information about creating search sources, see Search sources in AI Search.

You can link connector search sources to search profiles from the External Content Admin Home page. For details on this procedure, see Connect an external content connector to a search profile.

Parent Topic:Custom Connector Gateway external content connector

title	Create a Custom Connector Gateway external content connector
description	Create a Custom Connector Gateway external content connector to index searchable content and security principals retrieved by your custom connector implementation.
locale	en-US
canonical_url	https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/platform-administration/search-administration/create-ext-cont-connector-custom-connector-gateway.html
release	brazil
product	Search Administration
classification	search-administration
topic_type	task
last_updated	2026-10-21
reading_time_minutes	7
keywords	ServiceNow OttoAI Agentsgenerative AIagentic AI
breadcrumb	Custom Connector Gateway external content connectorConfigureExternal Content ConnectorsSearch administrationConfigure core featuresAdminister the ServiceNow AI Platform