1. Refactored every client (Rust core, Python, Node/TypeScript) so
“namespace” usage is explicit: code now keeps namespace paths
(namespace_path) separate from namespace clients (namespace_client).
Connections propagate the client, table creation routes through it, and
managed versioning defaults are resolved from namespace metadata. Python
gained LanceNamespaceDBConnection/async counterparts, and the
namespace-focused tests were rewritten to match the clarified API
surface.
2. Synchronized the workspace with Lance 5.0.0-beta.3 (see
https://github.com/lance-format/lance/pull/6186 for the upstream
namespace refactor), updating Cargo/uv lockfiles and ensuring all
bindings align with the new namespace semantics.
3. Added a namespace-backed code path to lancedb.connect() via new
keyword arguments (namespace_client_impl, namespace_client_properties,
plus the existing pushdown-ops flag). When those kwargs are supplied,
connect() delegates to connect_namespace, so users can opt into
namespace clients without changing APIs. (The async helper will gain
parity in a later change)
Without this fix, if user directly use the native table to do operations
like `add_columns`, even if it is configured to use namespace db
connection, it is not really propagated through.
The fix is to bring lancedb's python binding up to date and do a similar
implementation as https://github.com/lance-format/lance/pull/5968, and
make sure the namespace is fully propagated through all the related
calls.
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Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
