Files
lancedb/CONTRIBUTING.md
T
Brendan Clement 03e573f442 docs: declare where four pages apply
Vector search, materialized view refresh, authentication and authorization
now say in their frontmatter whether LanceDB OSS and LanceDB Enterprise have
what they describe, with one sentence on how. The assembled site renders
that as each page's label, its sidebar tag and its comparison row, so the
hand-written badges and opening paragraphs on the two security pages go.

The availability was checked against the SDK and the Enterprise server:
authorization is enforced only on a deployment configured for it, and a
deployment accepts OAuth tokens only with an identity provider configured.
Sections now say that only the Rust SDK sets approx_mode, that a deployment
may search exactly minimum_nprobes partitions, and that the SDK refuses
with_no_data, like source_version, on a db:// connection.
2026-10-08 15:47:28 -07:00

5.9 KiB

Contributing to LanceDB

LanceDB is an open-source project and we welcome contributions from the community. This document outlines the process for contributing to LanceDB.

Reporting Issues

If you encounter a bug or have a feature request, please open an issue on the GitHub issue tracker.

Picking an issue

We track issues on the GitHub issue tracker. If you are looking for something to work on, check the good first issue label. These issues are typically the best described and have the smallest scope.

If there's an issue you are interested in working on, please leave a comment on the issue. This will help us avoid duplicate work. Additionally, if you have questions about the issue, please ask them in the issue comments. We are happy to provide guidance on how to approach the issue.

Configuring Git

First, fork the repository on GitHub, then clone your fork:

git clone https://github.com/<username>/lancedb.git
cd lancedb

Then add the main repository as a remote:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/lancedb/lancedb.git
git fetch upstream

Setting up your development environment

We have development environments for Python, Typescript, and Java. Each environment has its own setup instructions.

Best practices for pull requests

For the best chance of having your pull request accepted, please follow these guidelines:

  1. Unit test all bug fixes and new features. Your code will not be merged if it doesn't have tests.
  2. If you change the public API, update the documentation in the docs directory.
  3. Aim to minimize the number of changes in each pull request. Keep to solving one problem at a time, when possible.
  4. Before marking a pull request ready-for-review, do a self review of your code. Is it clear why you are making the changes? Are the changes easy to understand?
  5. Use conventional commit messages as pull request titles. Examples:
    • New feature: feat: adding foo API
    • Bug fix: fix: issue with foo API
    • Documentation change: docs: adding foo API documentation
  6. If your pull request is a work in progress, leave the pull request as a draft. We will assume the pull request is ready for review when it is opened.
  7. When writing tests, test the error cases. Make sure they have understandable error messages.

Project structure

The core library is written in Rust. The Python, Typescript, and Java libraries are wrappers around the Rust library.

  • src/lancedb: Rust library source code
  • python: Python package source code
  • nodejs: Typescript package source code
  • node: Deprecated Typescript package source code
  • java: Java package source code
  • docs/src: SDK reference, built with mkdocs
  • docs/web: the open-source pages of docs.lancedb.com
  • docs/web-tests: the tests the documentation's code examples are extracted from

Documentation

The open-source pages of docs.lancedb.com live in docs/web, so a change to behaviour and the change to the page describing it belong in the same pull request.

Preview them locally — this serves docs/web on its own, with no other checkout:

npm i -g mint      # https://mintlify.com/docs/installation
cd docs/web && mint dev

This repository holds a page at every path the site publishes, so the whole navigation resolves locally. Enterprise pages exist here as open-source pages -- what the capability is, and what the embedded form does instead. A separate private repository supplies the fuller version of each, which replaces the page at the same path when the published site is assembled.

Three things to know before editing:

Code examples are not written into the pages. They live in real tests under docs/web-tests/{py,ts,rs}, are extracted into docs/web/snippets/, and are imported by the pages. Edit the test, then regenerate from the repository root:

uv run docs/web-tests/mdx_snippets_gen.py -s docs/web-tests/py -s docs/web-tests/ts -s docs/web-tests/rs -o docs/web/snippets

Review the diff before committing: a few modules currently regenerate with unrelated changes, so commit only the snippets for the examples you changed.

Run the Python, TypeScript and Rust examples in docs/web-tests/{py,ts,rs} locally before submitting the change. These examples are not yet wired into pull-request CI; that integration remains follow-up work.

Every heading carries an explicit {#anchor}. Those anchors are how the Enterprise pages attach their additions to the right section, so they are assigned once and never regenerated. Leave an existing anchor alone even when you reword the heading above it; only new headings need a new one.

A page can declare where it applies. Its frontmatter says whether LanceDB OSS and LanceDB Enterprise have the feature -- available, unavailable, or varies when it depends on version or configuration -- and one sentence that says how:

availability:
  oss: unavailable
  enterprise: available
  summary: >-
    Requests to a deployment carry an API key or an OAuth token. Embedded
    LanceDB has no server to sign in to.

The assembled site renders this as a label above the page's content, as a sidebar tag when only one offering has the feature, and as the page's row in the comparison on OSS and Enterprise. Do not also open the page with a badge of its own, and keep a qualification that only one section needs in that section's text. A mint dev preview of docs/web alone renders neither the labels nor the comparison.

Release process

For information on the release process, see: release_process.md