Create a custom recommendations app

This page describes how to create a custom recommendations app.

Console

To use the Google Cloud console to create a custom recommendations app, follow these steps:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the AI Applications page.

AI Applications
On the Apps page, click Create app.
On the Create App page, under Recommendations engine, click Create.
In the Your app name field, enter a name for your app. Your app ID appears under the engine name.
Optional: Click Edit to edit your app ID.
Click Continue.
To connect to a data store, on the Data Stores page, select a data store that contains structured data or choose to create a data store. Do one of the following:
- Select an existing data store, if one is available. A data store can be attached to only one app, and it can't be removed from the app later.
- Create a new structured data store and ingest data into it. Do this by clicking Create data store and following the steps in the Create a new data store pane that opens. Then select your new data store. For more information about creating a data store, see Create a custom recommendations data store.
Optional: To see a list of unavailable data stores, click Learn why.

A table is displayed with a list of data stores and the reason why they are unavailable. Here are some of the reasons why a data store might be unavailable:
- Your data store type allows connection to only one app and the data store is already connected.
- Your data store and your app are in different regions.
- Your data store and your app are of different types. For example, you cannot connect a media data store to a custom recommendations app.
- Your data store has basic website search, whereas a custom recommendations app requires a data store with advanced website indexing.
Click Create.

REST

Before you use the command line to create an app, you must have an existing data store. If you don't have a data store, create one following the steps in Create a custom recommendations data store.

To use the command line to create a recommendations app, follow these steps:

Find your data store ID. If you already have your data store ID, skip to the next step.
1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the AI Applications page and in the navigation menu, click Data Stores.
  
  Go to the Data Stores page
2. Click the name of your data store.
3. On the Data page for your data store, get the data store ID.
Create an app and connect it to a structured data store. A data store can be attached to only one app and can't be removed from the app later.

Key Term: In Vertex AI Search, the term app can be used interchangeably with the term engine in the context of APIs.
```
curl -X POST \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "X-Goog-User-Project: PROJECT_ID" \
"https://discoveryengine.googleapis.com/v1alpha/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/global/collections/default_collection/engines?engineId=APP_ID" \
-d '{
  "displayName": "APP_DISPLAY_NAME",
  "dataStoreIds": ["DATA_STORE_ID"],
  "solutionType": ["SOLUTION_TYPE_RECOMMENDATION"],
  "similarDocumentsConfig": {}
}'
```
Replace the following:
- PROJECT_ID: the ID of your Google Cloud project.
- APP_ID: the ID of the recommendations app that you want to create.
- APP_DISPLAY_NAME: the display name of the recommendations app that you want to create.
- DATA_STORE_ID: the ID of an existing recommendations data store that you want to add to the recommendations app.

What's next

To preview how your recommendations appear, see Get recommendations.