lance-format / lance-format/lance

Track physical column layout optimization

Open
#8,696 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@Xuanwo is already working on this.

Since Aug 21, 2026.

enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
7.1k
Forks
852
Avg merge
3d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
272

Description

Goal

Add an explicit physical-only maintenance operation that groups existing top-level fields into fewer standard per-fragment data files without changing logical rows or dataset semantics.

Context

Implementation and benchmark: https://github.com/lance-format/lance/pull/8614

Contract

  • Callers choose top-level field groups based on their workload.
  • Rewrites preserve logical values, fragment IDs, physical row order, deletion files, stable row IDs, and row-version metadata.
  • A fixed snapshot cutoff materializes visible overlays while newer overlays remain authoritative.
  • Disjoint field-level work can rebase safely; overlapping output conflicts fail.
  • Index coverage for rewritten fields is invalidated conservatively.
  • Legacy Blob, Blob v2, nested Blob v2, and external references use the existing safe rewrite machinery.
  • The operation remains explicit policy and does not add an automatic scheduler.

Out of scope

  • Automatic field grouping or workload learning.
  • Changing logical row layout or row addresses.
  • Immediate deletion of superseded provider objects.
  • Automatic index rebuild scheduling.

Completion gates

  • https://github.com/lance-format/lance/pull/8614 is rebased, passes CI, is reviewed, and is merged.
  • Rewrite, overlay, conflict, index, Blob, and stable-row-ID coverage passes.
  • Representative Local FS and object-storage benchmarks retain exact logical checksums.
  • Read-amplification and rewrite-cost trade-offs are documented.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

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.