Files
lancedb/docs
Daniel RammerandClaude Opus 5.5 d7e921dbec refactor!: rename the LSM table APIs to MemWAL
The write path these APIs drive is Lance's MemWAL, and "LSM" described
its shape rather than naming it. The surface now says MemWAL, and turning
it on and off reads as enabling a feature rather than installing a spec.

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| `set_lsm_write_spec` | `enable_memwal` |
| `unset_lsm_write_spec` | `disable_memwal` |
| `get_lsm_write_spec` | `get_memwal_spec` |
| `flush_lsm` / `compact_lsm` / `checkpoint_lsm` | `flush_memwal` / `compact_memwal` / `checkpoint_memwal` |
| `get_lsm_stats` | `get_memwal_stats` |
| `close_lsm_writers` | `close_memwal_writers` |
| `use_lsm` (query, merge insert) | `use_memwal` |
| `LsmWriteSpec` / `LsmStats` | `MemWalWriteSpec` / `MemWalStats` |
| Java `LanceDbTableLsm` | `LanceDbTableMemWal` |

TypeScript and Java use camelCase (`enableMemWal`, `getMemWalStats`,
...); the napi methods set `js_name` so the generated names keep the
`MemWal` casing. The flush/compact/checkpoint methods keep a `_memwal`
suffix so `compact_memwal` is not confused with `compact_files` and
`optimize`, which compact the base table.

## Wire

The remote routes and JSON envelopes move with the SDKs and must ship
together with the matching server change:

- `/set_lsm_write_spec/` -> `/enable_memwal/`, `/unset_lsm_write_spec/`
  -> `/disable_memwal/`, `/get_lsm_write_spec/` -> `/get_memwal_spec/`,
  `/flush_lsm/`, `/compact_lsm/`, `/get_lsm_stats/` -> `*_memwal/`
- response keys `lsm_write_spec` -> `memwal_spec`, `lsm_stats` ->
  `memwal_stats`; query and merge-insert body field `use_lsm` ->
  `use_memwal`

## Also fixed

The previous rename turned the Java `bucket` sharding mode into
`tableShard` in the javadoc example and tests, and the test fixtures
sent `tableShards` where the parser reads `table_shards`, so the Java
tests did not compile. Both are restored.

Internal names (`LsmMode`, `LsmScanner`, the `merge::lsm` and
`query::lsm` modules) are unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-12 15:54:03 -05:00
..
2026-09-09 15:33:04 +08:00

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 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