How Can a Databricks App Render the Same Detailed Response as the Genie UI?

gbhogle1789
New Contributor II

Sunday - last edited Sunday

I’m building a Databricks App with a Genie Space at the core and have run into a difference between the Genie UI and the Genie Conversation API.

For the same business question, the Genie web UI can produce a detailed response containing an executive summary, breakdowns, query-backed results, and visualizations.

When I invoke the same Genie Space from a Databricks App using the Databricks SDK (start_conversation_and_wait / create_message_and_wait), the returned narrative is often significantly shorter.

I also inspected the message attachments. In some Genie UI conversations, much of the detailed analysis appears to be represented through SQL/query/visualization attachments rather than a complete text attachment.

I tried retrieving query-attachment results through the Genie SDK/API, but I have not yet been able to reproduce the same detailed experience that is visible in the Genie web UI.

Questions:

  1. Is the detailed narrative displayed in the Genie web UI always available through the Conversation API, or does the UI perform additional client-side synthesis/rendering?
  2. What is the recommended API/SDK method for retrieving the result data associated with every query attachment returned by a Genie message?
  3. Can Genie-generated visualizations from the web UI be retrieved/rendered in a Databricks App?
  4. Is there a supported way for a Databricks App to request the same detailed/deep-research-style response produced by the Genie UI?
  5. For production Genie-powered Apps, what is the recommended pattern for presenting narrative + query results + visualizations while keeping Genie as the reasoning layer?

My goal is not to execute or reconstruct Genie's business logic separately in the application. I want the App to faithfully present the answer and evidence generated by Genie.

Any guidance on the expected API behavior or recommended implementation pattern would be appreciated.

Preview file
118 KB
Preview file
264 KB

DoTA
Valued Contributor

Sunday

Checked the current Genie REST API reference for this rather than guessing, a few concrete answers.

 

Query attachment result data: GET /api/2.0/genie/spaces/{space_id}/conversations/{conversation_id}/messages/{message_id}/attachments/{attachment_id}/query-result (SDK: getMessageAttachmentQueryResult). Returns a statement_response with manifest/schema plus result.data_array (and external_links/total_row_count/truncated for larger results). For bigger result sets there's also a generateDownloadFullQueryResult endpoint. So: iterate message.attachments, and for each attachment where the type is a query attachment, call this to get the actual rows, you don't need to re-run the SQL yourself.

 

Visualizations: these are very likely your missing piece. Message creation (create_message_and_wait / start_conversation_and_wait) takes an enable_visualization boolean, and it defaults to not generating them. If you're not passing enable_visualization: true, the API will legitimately return a shorter response than the UI, because the UI always requests them. With it set, messages can include a visualization-type attachment carrying a title and a query_attachment_id pointing back to the query attachment it's built from. One caveat from what's documented: that attachment gives you the title and the source query reference, not a ready-to-render chart spec or image, so your app still has to decide how to plot the underlying query-result data. It's parity on "a visualization exists and what it's based on," not a drop-in rendered chart artifact.

 

On the narrative length gap specifically: a text attachment's content field is described as the actual AI-generated message, not something the UI further synthesizes client-side, so if you're still short after adding enable_visualization, worth checking whether the UI conversation you're comparing against is actually running in Agent mode. That's a separate, still-Beta API surface (POST /api/2.0/genie/agents/{agent_id}/responses) with a different response model entirely, reasoning/function_call/function_call_output/message items instead of conversation attachments, and it's what produces the longer deep-research-style narratives with 5+ chained queries. If your UI comparison was an Agent mode conversation, the Conversation API you're calling isn't the same code path at all.

 

For the "don't want to reconstruct Genie's logic, just present it faithfully" part of your ask: rather than hand-rolling the attachments-to-UI mapping, Databricks' own AppKit has a GenieChat React component (@databricks/appkit-ui/react) built exactly for this, wire a Genie plugin on the server, bind GenieChat to your space via an alias, and it handles the streaming/history/reconnection plumbing for you. I couldn't confirm from the docs alone whether it has full visualization parity with the standalone Genie UI, so worth a quick spike, but it's the officially maintained path rather than reimplementing attachment rendering from scratch.

0 Kudos