LanceDB Viewer / LanceDB Studio

LanceDB Viewer is a Tauri v2 desktop app for inspecting and operating LanceDB databases. The frontend is Vue 3 + TypeScript, and the backend is Rust with LanceDB 0.23.1, Arrow, and Tauri IPC v1.

Current release target: v0.0.2.

The current product shape is a work-focused database studio: a dark global navigation rail, a collapsible connection sidebar, and a right workspace for Explorer, Search, Credentials, and related management views.

Current Capabilities

• Connection profiles with name, uri, storageOptions, consistency options, and an auth descriptor.
• LanceDB connection lifecycle through connect_v1 / disconnect_v1.
• Table discovery, open table, schema inspection, data scan, write, update, delete, import, export, optimize, and version operations.
• Explorer data browsing through scan_v1.
  • Default UI path requests format: "arrow".
  • Frontend decodes Arrow IPC with apache-arrow.
  • JSON fallback is used when Arrow decoding or compatibility fails.
  • Paging remains limit / offset / nextOffset.
• Search workspace for filter, vector, full-text, and hybrid search.
  • combined_search_v1 is a true hybrid path: vector query + FTS query + LanceDB RRFReranker with rank normalization.
  • Hybrid search requires both query text and vector input.
  • Result metadata may include _relevance_score, _distance, _score, _hybrid_rank, and _hybrid_source; UI displays blank cells when LanceDB does not emit a score column for a specific result path.
• Schema, Versions, and Indexes tabs for table management.
  • Index listing displays index stats when LanceDB reports them.
  • Index creation exposes key controls: columns, index type, name, replace, distance type, IVF parameters, PQ/RQ parameters, and HNSW parameters.
• Mutation guardrails for broad update/delete requests. Full-table mutation requires explicit confirmation and allowFullTable: true.

Auth Contract

Supported auth modes in this version:

• none
• inline

secret_ref is present in the IPC/profile schema for forward compatibility, but it is intentionally disabled in this version. The frontend returns a friendly not_implemented envelope before invoking IPC, and the backend also rejects secret_ref with NotImplemented. Full Stronghold-backed secret_ref connect support is a later version item.

IPC v1 Notes

• All commands return ResultEnvelope<T> with apiVersion, ok, data, and optional error.
• DataChunk supports format: "json" and format: "arrow".
• scan_v1 is the Arrow-first large-data boundary.
• Search results currently return JSON chunks.
• IPC payloads are additive where possible so frontend and backend can evolve without breaking existing callers.

Development

Install dependencies:

bun install

Run the frontend dev server:

bun run dev

Run the desktop app:

bun tauri dev

Run frontend tests:

bun run test
bun run test:coverage

Build frontend assets:

bun run build

Run Rust tests:

cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml

Generate a sample database:

cargo run --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml --bin seed_db -- sample-db

Optional sample DB flags include --table <name> and --rows <count>.

Validation Guidance

• Use bun run test for frontend utilities, composables, and request builders.
• Use bun run build when Vue components, IPC types, or TypeScript contracts changed.
• Use targeted bunx biome ci <files...> for touched files while the repository still has unrelated formatting drift.
• Use cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml for backend and IPC command changes.

Reference Docs

• UI_DESIGN.md: current UI architecture and interaction contracts.
• dev_docs/exec/review-stabilization-2026-06-15.md: active stabilization execution plan and closeout evidence.
• LanceDB docs: https://docs.lancedb.com/
• Tauri docs: https://v2.tauri.app/