clockworklabs / clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB

Docs - Explain `primary_key` and the distinction between `primary_key` and `unique`

Open
#3,085 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@gefjon is already working on this.

Since Mar 16, 2025.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
25.2k
Forks
1.1k
Avg merge
2d 7h
Merged PRs (30d)
46

Description

In SpacetimeDB, the only difference between unique and primary_key is that the client SDKs assign special semantics to primary_key columns. Specifically, the on_update callback fires for a row when a single transaction deletes an old row with a certain primary key, and then inserts a new row with that same primary key. Tables without a primary key column will never observe an on_update event. (Also, a table can only have at most one primary key column, but may have as many unique columns as it wants.) Otherwise, the two constraints are equivalent.

Include the above in the docs

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.