Adds the client half of database-scoped named Secrets: a Secret is a
name and
an opaque value stored by the service, and a Function binds one to the
environment variable its library already reads. Secrets are addressed by
a
namespace path plus a name.
The UDF body is unchanged and stays portable — it reads `OPENAI_API_KEY`
the
way it always did, and the binding is what puts a value there:
```python
db.create_secret("openai-prod", os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"])
function = db.create_function(
analyze_caption,
secrets=[
EnvVarSecret(secret_name="openai-prod", env_variable="OPENAI_API_KEY")
],
)
function.secret_bindings # the Secret's name, never its value
```
- `create_secret` / `alter_secret` / `list_secrets` / `describe_secret`
/
`drop_secret` on sync, async and remote connections, with the pyo3
binding
and the Rust client behind them. Each takes `namespace_path`
keyword-only,
defaulting to the root.
- **There is no read API, by construction rather than by policy** — no
code
path returns a stored credential, and `describe_secret` answers with
metadata only.
- `EnvVarSecret` is a pure local constructor: it contacts no server, so
it
cannot fail on a Secret that does not exist. It exists so that a bare
string
in that position — which would be a credential — is a `TypeError` rather
than a plausible-looking mistake that reads identically in a diff.
- `create_function(..., secrets=[...])` carries the bindings as
`secret_bindings`: a list of `SecretBinding` tagged by `kind`, so a
later
delivery mode is a variant rather than a sibling field. The value never
travels — it is resolved by the service when the Function runs, which is
what
lets a rotation reach columns already pinned to an older
FunctionVersion.
- A binding names its Secret as a `SecretReference` of `{name,
namespace_path}`
rather than one joined string, so no delimiter has to be excluded from
every
name and segment forever, and `ClientConfig.id_delimiter` cannot
contradict
an identity built on a fixed separator.
- A root namespace is omitted from the request body rather than sent
empty, so
a root request is byte-identical to one from a client that predates
namespaces. Tests pin it.
This is the client surface the design's §4 describes; the service side
lives in
sophon.
**Previously split across two PRs.** Namespace addressing was #4151,
stacked on
this one; it is folded in here so the Secret identity contract — name,
namespace path, and the binding that carries both — is reviewable as one
piece
rather than as a shape introduced and then replaced.
## Identifier safety, merged from #4189
**#4189 is merged into this branch**, so the client half of Secrets and
the
guards on the identity it puts in the URL are one PR. What it added:
- Components are checked where the identifier is built, before a request
is
constructed. `create_secret("../jobs", value)` no longer resolves to
`/v1/jobs/create` and delivers a credential-bearing body to a route with
none
of this one's body suppression.
- Each component is percent-encoded and joined by the delimiter, so
nothing
inside a component can end the path segment or add one.
- A component may not be empty, a relative segment (`.`, `..`, and their
`%2e`
spellings), or the delimiter itself — the three ways a component erases
a
boundary the split has to recover. `["prod", ""]` joined to `prod$`,
which
reads back as `["prod"]`.
- `$` is the only accepted `id_delimiter`, refused at client
construction.
`ClientConfig.id_delimiter` remains, since the identifier grammar comes
from
the Lance REST catalog standard, but a value that would produce
identifiers no
service splits the caller's way is now an error where it was written.
- One `build_object_identifier` and one character set serve tables,
namespaces,
Secrets, Functions and materialized views.
Components are checked for *addressability*, not a character set: the
name's
own grammar stays each object's own, so a catalog database keeps the `/`
that
`RemoteCatalog::validate_name` allows.
## Known shortcoming
`secret_bindings` is omitted from a registration body when empty, so a
client
that binds nothing sends what a client without bindings sends. When a
client
does bind a Secret and the service does not know the field, the field is
ignored: registration succeeds, the returned version carries no
bindings, and
the Function fails at execution with the variable unset, far from the
call that
asked for it.
`ServerVersion` is how this codebase refuses a feature the service is
too old
for, and it gates five features already. It does not gate this one: it
is held
per table, and registering a Function is a database-level call. Noted at
the
field in `remote/db.rs`; wiring the gate is follow-up work.
**Tests:** lancedb lib 1340 passed, `first_class_function_slice1` 9,
`first_class_function_slice2` 3, plus Python tests across both slices.
Rebased onto `main` after #4176 (OCI Function identity), #4191 (`.`/`..`
table
names) and #4195 (remote catalogs).
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
https://claude.ai/code/session_01UfmeJ533rQDnPBkMtjerV6
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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
- Install LanceDB Python. See setup in Python contributing guide.
Run
make developto install the Python package. - 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 examples depend on @lancedb/lancedb at file:../dist, so the package must be
built before running the tests. This uses pnpm; see the
Typescript contributing guide for the toolchain setup.
pushd nodejs
pnpm install
pnpm build
popd
Then you can run the examples by going to the nodejs/examples directory, which is a
separate pnpm package with its own lockfile:
pushd nodejs/examples
pnpm install
pnpm 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
# `pnpm docs` would invoke pnpm's built-in `docs` command, not the script.
pnpm run docs
popd