lance-format / lance-format/lance

Treat vector indexes as plugin

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#5,231 4 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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A-index enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
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Forks
852
Avg merge
3d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
272

Description

We've converted scalar indexes to a plugin model. However, vector indexes are still very much ad-hoc. I think we should rename the ScalarIndexPlugin trait to IndexPlugin and change the API to support vector indexes as well as scalar indexes. This will be required if we want to support vector index plugins someday.

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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.

Research direction

Start by locating the ScalarIndexPlugin trait and the existing vector-index implementation, then compare how scalar indexes are represented as plugins. Review the current API and determine the changes needed for one IndexPlugin abstraction to support both kinds of indexes; done means vector indexes can use the plugin model without ad-hoc handling.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
databases, search
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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