ServiceNow Scripting Tutorial: GlideRecord Basics

What is GlideRecord?

GlideRecord is the server-side API used to query and modify records in any ServiceNow table. It is the single most important API in ServiceNow scripting.

Querying records

This query returns all active priority-1 incidents.

var gr = new GlideRecord('incident');
gr.addQuery('active', true);
gr.addQuery('priority', 1);
gr.query();
while (gr.next()) {
  gs.info(gr.getValue('number') + ' - ' + gr.getValue('short_description'));
}

Inserting and updating

Use initialize() and insert() to create records, and update() after changing fields.

var inc = new GlideRecord('incident');
inc.initialize();
inc.setValue('short_description', 'Email not syncing');
inc.setValue('urgency', 2);
var sysId = inc.insert();

Best practices

Always use setLimit() when you need one record, prefer GlideAggregate for counts, and avoid queries inside loops.