---
title: REST API Reference
sidebarTitle: "Overview"
description: "API reference for LanceDB"

---

[Lance REST Namespace](https://lance.org/format/namespace/) spec
is an OpenAPI protocol that enables reading, writing and managing Lance tables by connecting
those metadata services or building a custom metadata server in a standardized way.

LanceDB OSS allows you to interface with Lance tables via the REST Namespace.
LanceDB Enterprise provides an extended REST API with
additional endpoints for managing tables and data.
If you have specific needs or questions about the Enterprise REST API Namespace,
please [contact us](mailto:support@lancedb.com).

## Authentication {#authentication}

<Badge color="red">Enterprise</Badge>

All HTTP requests to LanceDB APIs must contain an <u>x-api-key</u> header that specifies a valid API key and
must be encoded as JSON or Arrow RPC.

To authenticate to the Enterprise REST API, you need the endpoint for your deployment and a valid API key for that deployment.

### Get your Enterprise credentials {#get-your-enterprise-credentials}

1. Obtain the following values from your LanceDB administrator or the LanceDB team that provisioned your Enterprise deployment:
   - an API key
   - your Enterprise REST endpoint
   - your database name, if your deployment uses a private endpoint or `host_override`

2. Export those values in your terminal:

```bash
export LANCEDB_API_KEY="<your-api-key>"
export LANCEDB_HOST_OVERRIDE="https://your-enterprise-endpoint.com"
export LANCEDB_DATABASE="your-database-name"
```

`LANCEDB_HOST_OVERRIDE` is the endpoint the SDKs take as `host_override`; the
database name is the part of its `db://` URI after `db://`.

3. If your Enterprise deployment is private, connect through the private network endpoint provided for your deployment. For example, Azure Private Link deployments commonly use a private IP or an internal DNS name as the endpoint.

### Verify authentication {#verify-authentication}

4. Check that you can reach the deployment and list tables:

```bash
curl -X GET "$LANCEDB_HOST_OVERRIDE/v1/table/" \
   -H "x-api-key: $LANCEDB_API_KEY" \
   -H "x-lancedb-database: $LANCEDB_DATABASE"
```

The response lists one page of table names, with a token for the next page when
there are more.

If your deployment endpoint already includes the database host name, you can omit the `x-lancedb-database` header.

5. Create a table to confirm write access. Let's call it `words`. A table is
created from an Arrow IPC stream, which this writes with PyArrow:

```bash
python -c "import pyarrow as pa, sys; t = pa.table({'word': ['hello', 'world']}); w = pa.ipc.new_stream(sys.stdout.buffer, t.schema); w.write_table(t); w.close()" > words.arrow

curl -X POST "$LANCEDB_HOST_OVERRIDE/v1/table/words/create" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.apache.arrow.stream" \
   -H "x-api-key: $LANCEDB_API_KEY" \
   -H "x-lancedb-database: $LANCEDB_DATABASE" \
   --data-binary @words.arrow
```

6. Check that the table has been created:

```bash
curl -X POST "$LANCEDB_HOST_OVERRIDE/v1/table/words/describe" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -H "x-api-key: $LANCEDB_API_KEY" \
   -H "x-lancedb-database: $LANCEDB_DATABASE" \
   -d '{}'
```

That's it -- you're connected! Now, you can start adding data and querying it.
You can visit the tutorial section to build your own applications with LanceDB.

<Card
   title="Tutorials"
   icon="book"
   href="/tutorials/"
>
   Check out our tutorials on building various applications with LanceDB.
</Card>