Files
lancedb/docs
Brendan Clement 53517b3aaa feat: add table branch support (#3490)
### Description

Adds first-class support for table branches across the Rust core and the
Python and TypeScript SDKs.

Rust

```rust
use lance::dataset::refs::Ref;

// Create a branch from main and write to it — main is untouched.
let exp = table.create_branch("exp", Ref::Version(None, None)).await?;
exp.add(batches).await?;

// Reopen the branch later: check out from a table, or open it directly.
let exp = table.checkout_branch("exp").await?;
let exp = db.open_table("items").branch("exp").execute().await?;

let branches = table.list_branches().await?;
table.delete_branch("exp").await?;
```

Python

```python
# Create a branch from main and write to it
branch = await table.branches.create("exp", from_ref="main")
await branch.add(data)

# Reopen the branch later: check out from a table, or open it directly.
branch = await table.branches.checkout("exp")
branch = await db.open_table("items", branch="exp")

await table.branches.list()
await table.branches.delete("exp")
```

TypeScript

```typescript
const branches = await table.branches();

// Create a branch from main and write to it
const branch = await branches.create("exp");
await branch.add(data);

// Reopen the branch later: check out from a table, or open it directly.
const checkedOut = await branches.checkout("exp");
const opened = await db.openTable("items", undefined, { branch: "exp" });

await branches.list();
await branches.delete("exp");
```

### Testing
- Added unit tests
- ran smoke tests against python and typescript sdks on local machine


### Next steps
- Add RemoteTable support
- Add Branch Comparison support
- Merge Branching support
2026-06-08 16:26:46 -07:00
..

LanceDB Documentation

LanceDB docs are available at docs.lancedb.com.

The SDK docs are built and deployed automatically by Github Actions whenever a commit is pushed to the main branch. So it is possible for the docs to show unreleased features.

Building the docs

Setup

  1. Install LanceDB Python. See setup in Python contributing guide. Run make develop to install the Python package.
  2. Install documentation dependencies. From LanceDB repo root: pip install -r docs/requirements.txt

Preview the docs

cd docs
mkdocs serve

If you want to just generate the HTML files:

PYTHONPATH=. mkdocs build -f docs/mkdocs.yml

If successful, you should see a docs/site directory that you can verify locally.

Adding examples

To make sure examples are correct, we put examples in test files so they can be run as part of our test suites.

You can see the tests are at:

  • Python: python/python/tests/docs
  • Typescript: nodejs/examples/

Checking python examples

cd python
pytest -vv python/tests/docs

Checking typescript examples

The @lancedb/lancedb package must be built before running the tests:

pushd nodejs
npm ci
npm run build
popd

Then you can run the examples by going to the nodejs/examples directory and running the tests like a normal npm package:

pushd nodejs/examples
npm ci
npm test
popd

API documentation

Python

The Python API documentation is organized based on the file docs/src/python/python.md. We manually add entries there so we can control the organization of the reference page. However, this means any new types must be manually added to the file. No additional steps are needed to generate the API documentation.

Typescript

The typescript API documentation is generated from the typescript source code using typedoc.

When new APIs are added, you must manually re-run the typedoc command to update the API documentation. The new files should be checked into the repository.

pushd nodejs
npm run docs
popd