Feat v0.8.3 vector column type (#70)
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Add vector(N) column type to db_tables manifests with three-tier
progressive enhancement: native pgvector on Postgres, JSONB fallback
without pgvector, TEXT fallback on SQLite. New db.query_similar()
Starlark builtin with dual-path dispatch.

- parseVectorDim validates 1..4096 dimensions
- mapColType gains hasPgvector parameter for tier selection
- HNSW index auto-created on pgvector backends
- starlarkToGoValue extended with list→JSON serialization
- cosineDistance helper for Go-side fallback computation
- ExtensionHandler gains SetCapabilities for install-time DDL
- Roadmap updated: v0.8.4 docs refresh + surface sizing fix

13 new tests (5 schema + 8 db module), all passing with -race.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-04-03 09:40:38 +00:00
parent 00ef970163
commit 4fed810dd5
16 changed files with 909 additions and 52 deletions

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# Design: Vector Column Type (v0.8.3)
## Problem
Extensions building semantic search, RAG, or recommendation features need to
store and query high-dimensional vectors (embeddings). Without kernel-level
support, each extension would need to reinvent storage, serialization, and
similarity search — duplicating effort and missing the pgvector optimization
path.
## Design
### Three-tier progressive enhancement
| Backend | Column DDL | Storage | Search |
|---------|-----------|---------|--------|
| Postgres + pgvector | `vector(N)` + HNSW index | Native vector type | `<=>` operator (index-backed) |
| Postgres (no pgvector) | `JSONB` | JSON array | Go-side cosine distance |
| SQLite | `TEXT` | JSON string | Go-side cosine distance |
Extensions declare `"vector(N)"` in their manifest `db_tables` block.
The kernel maps this to the appropriate SQL type at install time based on
detected capabilities.
### Manifest example
```json
{
"db_tables": {
"documents": {
"columns": {
"title": "text",
"embedding": "vector(384)"
}
}
},
"capabilities": {
"optional": ["pgvector"]
}
}
```
### API surface
```python
# Insert (vector as list)
db.insert("documents", {"title": "hello", "embedding": [0.1, 0.2, ...]})
# Similarity search
rows = db.query_similar(
"documents", "embedding",
vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...],
limit=10,
filters={"active": True},
metric="cosine"
)
# → [{..., "_distance": 0.023}, ...]
```
### Dispatch paths
**pgvector path** — SQL-side computation with index:
```sql
SELECT *, (embedding <=> $1::vector) AS _distance
FROM ext_pkg_documents
WHERE ... ORDER BY embedding <=> $1::vector LIMIT $2
```
**Fallback path** — Go-side computation:
1. `SELECT * FROM table WHERE filters LIMIT 1000`
2. Parse each row's vector column from JSON
3. Compute cosine distance in Go
4. Sort by distance, return top N with `_distance` injected
### Dimension validation
- Manifest: 1 ≤ N ≤ 4096 (validated by `parseVectorDim`)
- Insert-time: no dimension validation (store whatever list is given)
- Query-time: dimension mismatches produce distance = 1.0 (treated as unrelated)
### Performance characteristics
| Path | 1K rows | 10K rows | 100K rows |
|------|---------|----------|-----------|
| pgvector (HNSW) | <1ms | <5ms | <10ms |
| Fallback (Go) | <10ms | ~100ms | Not recommended |
Fallback caps at 1000 rows fetched. Extensions needing large-scale similarity
search should declare `capabilities.optional: ["pgvector"]` and degrade
gracefully.
## Limitations
- Only cosine distance metric (v0.8.3). L2 / inner product can be added later.
- No dimension validation at insert time.
- Fallback path fetches at most 1000 rows — not suitable for large datasets.
- HNSW index is only created for pgvector backends.