Spice v1.2.0 (Apr 28, 2025)

April 29, 2025 · 12 min read

Senior Software Engineer at Spice AI

Announcing the release of Spice v1.2.0! 🚀

Spice v1.2.0 is a significant update. It upgrades DataFusion to v45 and Arrow to v54. This release brings faster query performance, support for parameterized queries in SQL and HTTP APIs, and the ability to accelerate views. Several bugs have been fixed and dependencies updated for better stability and speed.

DataFusion v45 Highlights

Spice.ai is built on the DataFusion query engine. The v45 release brings:

Faster Performance 🚀: DataFusion is now the fastest single-node engine for Apache Parquet files in the clickbench benchmark. Performance improved by over 33% from v33 to v45. Arrow StringView is now on by default, making string and binary data queries much faster, especially with Parquet files.
Better Quality 📋: DataFusion now runs over 5 million SQL tests per push using the SQLite sqllogictest suite. There are new checks for logical plan correctness and more thorough pre-release testing.
New SQL Functions ✨: Added show functions, to_local_time, regexp_count, map_extract, array_distance, array_any_value, greatest, least, and arrays_overlap.

See the DataFusion 45.0.0 release notes for details.

Spice.ai upgrades to the latest minus one DataFusion release to ensure adequate testing and stability. The next upgrade to DataFusion v46 is planned for Spice v1.3.0 in May.

What's New in v1.2.0

Parameterized Queries: Parameterized queries are now supported with the Flight SQL API and HTTP API. Positional and named arguments via $1 and :param syntax are supported, respectively. Logical plans for SQL statements are cached for faster repeated queries.

Example Cookbook recipes:
See the API Documentation for additional details.

Accelerated Views: Views, not just datasets, can now be accelerated. This provides much better performance for views that perform heavy computation.

Example spicepod.yaml:

views:
  - name: accelerated_view
    acceleration:
      enabled: true
      engine: duckdb
      primary_key: id
      refresh_check_interval: 1h
    sql: |
      select * from dataset_a
      union all
      select * from dataset_b

See the Data Acceleration documentation.

Memory Usage Metrics & Configuration: Runtime now tracks memory usage as a metric, and a new runtime memory_limit parameter is available. The memory limit parameter applies specifically to the runtime and should be used in addition to existing memory usage configuration, such as duckdb_memory_limit. Memory usage for queries beyond the memory limit will spill to disk.

See the Memory Reference for details.

New Worker Component: Workers are new configurable compute units in the Spice runtime. They help manage compute across models and tools, handle errors, and balance load. Workers are configured in the workers section of spicepod.yaml.

Example spicepod.yaml:

workers:
  - name: round-robin
    description: |
      Distributes requests between 'foo' and 'bar' models in a round-robin fashion.
    models:
      - from: foo
      - from: bar
  - name: fallback
    description: |
      Tries 'bar' first, then 'foo', then 'baz' if earlier models fail.
    models:
      - from: foo
        order: 2
      - from: bar
        order: 1
      - from: baz
        order: 3

See the Workers Documentation for details.

Databricks Model Provider: Databricks models can now be used with from: databricks:model_name.

Example spicepod.yaml:

models:
  - from: databricks:llama-3_2_1_1b_instruct
    name: llama-instruct
    params:
      databricks_endpoint: dbc-46470731-42e5.cloud.databricks.com
      databricks_token: ${ secrets:SPICE_DATABRICKS_TOKEN }

See the Databricks model documentation.

spice chat CLI Improvements: The spice chat command now supports an optional --temperature parameter. A one-shot chat can also be sent with spice chat <message>.
More Type Support: Added support for Postgres JSON type and DuckDB Dictionary type.
Other Improvements:
- New image tags let you pick memory allocators for different use-cases: jemalloc, sysalloc, and mimalloc.
- Better error handling and logging for chat and model operations.

Contributors

Cookbook Updates

New recipes for:

Python ADBC Client with Parameterized Queries: Using Parameterized Queries from Python over ADBC.
Java JDBC Client with Parameterized Queries: Using Parameterized Queries from Java over JDBC.
Scala JDBC Client with Parameterized Queries: Using Parameterized Queries from Scala over JDBC.

The Spice Cookbook now includes 68 recipes to help you get started with Spice quickly and easily.

Upgrading

To upgrade to v1.2.0, use one of the following methods:

CLI:

spice upgrade

Homebrew:

brew upgrade spiceai/spiceai/spice

Docker:

Pull the spiceai/spiceai:1.2.0 image:

docker pull spiceai/spiceai:1.2.0

For available tags, see DockerHub.

Helm:

helm repo update
helm upgrade spiceai spiceai/spiceai

What's Changed

Dependencies

DataFusion: upgraded to v45.
Apache Arrow: Upgraded to v54.3.0.

Spice is now built with Rust 1.85.0 and Rust 2024.

Changelog

- Update end_game.md (#5312) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5312
- feat: Add initial testoperator query validation (#5311) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5311
- Update Helm + Prepare for next release (#5317) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5317
- Update spicepod.schema.json (#5319) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5319
- add integration test for reading encrypted PDFs from S3 (#5308) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5308
- Stop `load_components` during runtime shutdown (#5306) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5306
- Update openapi.json (#5321) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5321
- feat: Implement record batch data validation (#5331) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5331
- Update QA analytics for v1.1.1 (#5320) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5320
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5337) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5337
- Enforce pulls with Spice v1.0.4 (#5339) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5339
- Upgrade to DataFusion 45, Arrow 54, Rust 1.85 & Edition 2024 (#5334) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5334
- feat: Allow validating testoperator in benchmark workflow (#5342) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5342
- Upgrade `delta_kernel` to 0.9 (#5343) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5343
- deps: Update odbc-api (#5344) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5344
- Fix schema inference for Snowflake tables with large number of columns (#5348) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5348
- feat: Update testoperator dispatch for validation, version metric (#5349) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5349
- fix: validate_results not validate (#5352) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5352
- revert to previous pdf-extract; remove test for encrypted pdf support (#5355) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5355
- Stablize the test `verify_similarity_search_chat_completion` (#5284) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5284
- Turn off `delta_kernel::log_segment` logging and refactor log filtering (#5367) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5367
- Upgrade to DuckDB 1.2.2 (#5375) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5375
- Update Readme - fix broken and outdated links (#5376) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5376
- Upgrade dependabot dependencies (#5385) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5385
- fix: Remove IMAP oauth (#5386) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5386
- Bump Helm chart to 1.1.2 (#5389) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5389
- Refactor accelerator registry as part of runtime. (#5318) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5318
- Include `vnd.spiceai.sql/nsql.v1+json` response examples (openapi docs) (#5388) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5388
- docs: Update endgame template with SpiceQA, update qa analytics (#5391) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5391
- Make graceful shutdown timeout configurable (#5358) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5358
- docs: Update release criteria with note on max columns (#5401) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5401
- Update openapi.json (#5392) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5392
- FinanceBench: update scorer instructions and switch scoring model to `gpt-4.1` (#5395) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5395
- feat: Write OTel metrics for testoperator (#5397) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5397
- Update nsql openapi title (#5403) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5403
- Track `ai_inferences_count` with used tools flag. Extensible runtime request context. (#5393) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5393
- Include newly detected view as changed view (#5408) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5408
- Track used_tools in ai_inferences_with_spice_count as number (#5409) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5409
- Update openapi.json (#5406) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5406
- Tweak enforce pulls with Spice (#5411) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5411
- Allow `flightsql` and `spiceai` connectors to override flight max message size (#5407) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5407
- Retry model graded scorer once on successful, empty response (#5405) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5405
- use span task name in 'spice trace' tree, not span_id (#5412) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5412
- Rename to `track_ai_inferences_with_spice_count` in all places (#5410) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5410
- Update qa_analytics.csv (#5421) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5421
- Remove the filter for the `list_datasets` tool in the AI inferences metric count. (#5417) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5417
- fix: Testoperator uses an exact API key for benchmark metric submission (#5413) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5413
- feat: Enable testoperator metrics in workflow (#5422) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5422
- Upgrade mistral.rs (#5404) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5404
- Include all FinanceBench documents in benchmark tests (#5426) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5426
- Handle second Ctrl-C to force runtime termination (#5427) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5427
- Add optional `--temperature` parameter for `spice chat` CLI command (#5429) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5429
- Remove `with_runtime_status` from the `RuntimeBuilder` (#5430) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5430
- Fix spice chat error handling (#5433) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5433
- Add more test models to FinanceBench benchmark (#5431) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5431
- support 'from: databricks:model_name' (#5434) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5434
- Upgrade Pulls with Spice to v1.0.6 and add concurrency control (#5442) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5442
- Upgrade DataFusion table providers (#5443) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5443
- Test spice chat in e2e_test_spice_cli (#5447) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5447
- Allow for one-shot chat request using `spice chat <message>` (#5444) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5444
- Enable parallel data sampling for NSQL (#5449) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5449
- Upgrade Go from v1.23.4 to v1.24.2 (#5462) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5462
- Update PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md (#5465) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5465
- Enable captured outputs by default when spiced is started by the CLI (spice run) (#5464) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5464
- Parameterized queries via Flight SQL API (#5420) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5420
- fix: Update benchmarks readme badge (#5466) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5466
- delay auth check for binding parameterized queries (#5475) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5475
- Add support for `?` placeholder syntax in parameterized queries (#5463) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5463
- enable task name override for non static span names (#5423) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5423
- Allow parameter queries with no parameters (#5481) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5481
- Support unparsing UNION for distinct results (#5483) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5483
- add rust-toolchain.toml (#5485) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5485
- Add parameterized query support to the HTTP API (#5484) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5484
- E2E test for spice chat <message> behavior (#5451) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5451
- Renable and fix huggingface models integration tests (#5478) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5478
- Update openapi.json (#5488) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5488
- feat: Record memory usage as a metric (#5489) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5489
- fix: update dispatcher to run all benchmarks, rename metric, update spicepods, add scale factor (#5500) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5500
- Fix ILIKE filters support (#5502) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5502
- fix: Update test spicepod locations and names (#5505) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5505
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5508) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5508
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5512) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5512
- Fix Delta Lake bug for: Found unmasked nulls for non-nullable StructArray field "predicate" (#5515) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5515
- fix: working directory for duckdb e2e test spicepods (#5510) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5510
- Tweaks to README.md (#5516) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5516
- Cache logical plans of SQL statements (#5487) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5487
- Fix `content-type: application/json` (#5517) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5517
- Validate postgres results in testoperator dispatch (#5504) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5504
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5511) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5511
- Fix results cache by SQL with prepared statements (#5518) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5518
- Add initial support for views acceleration (#5509) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5509
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5527) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5527
- Support switching the memory allocator Spice uses via `alloc-*` features. (#5528) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5528
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5525) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5525
- Add test spicepod for tpch mysql-duckdb[file acceleration] (#5521) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5521
- Fix nightly arm build - change tag `-default` to `-models` (#5529) by @ewgenius in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5529
- LLM router via `worker` spicepod component (#5513) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5513
- Apply Spice advanced acceleration logic and params support to accelerated views (#5526) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5526
- Enable DatasetCheckpoint logic for accelerated views (#5533) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5533
- Fix public '.model' name for router workers (#5535) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5535
- feat: Add Runtime memory limit parameter (#5536) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5536
- For fallback worker, check first item in `chat/completion` stream. (#5537) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5537
- Move rate limit check to after parameterized query binding (#5540) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5540
- Update spicepod.schema.json (#5545) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5545
- Accelerate views: refresh_on_startup, ready_state, jitter params support (#5547) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5547
- Add integration test for accelerated views (#5550) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5550
- Don't install make or expect on spiceai-macos runners (#5554) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5554
- `event_stream` crate for emitting events from tracing::Span; used in v1/chat/completions streaming. (#5474) by @Jeadie in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5474
- Fix typo in method (#5559) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5559
- Run test operator every day and current and previous commits (#5557) by @lukekim in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5557
- Add aws_allow_http parameter for delta lake connector (#5541) by @Sevenannn in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5541
- feat: Add branch name to metric dimensions in testoperator (#5563) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5563
- fix: Update the tpch benchmark snapshots for: ./test/spicepods/tpch/sf1/federated/odbc[databricks].yaml (#5565) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5565
- fix: Split scheduled dispatch into a separate job (#5567) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5567
- fix: Use outputs.SPICED_COMMIT (#5568) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5568
- fix: Use refs in testoperator dispatch instead of commits (#5569) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5569
- fix: actions/checkout ref does not take a full ref (#5571) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5571
- fix: Testoperator dispatch (#5572) by @peasee in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5572
- Respect `update-snapshots` when running all benchmarks manually (#5577) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5577
- Use FETCH_HEAD instead of ${{ inputs.ref }} to list commits in setup_spiced (#5579) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5579
- Add additional test scenarios for benchmarks (#5582) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5582
- fix: Update the tpch benchmark snapshots for: test/spicepods/tpch/sf1/accelerated/databricks[delta_lake]-duckdb[file].yaml (#5590) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5590
- fix: Update the tpch benchmark snapshots for: test/spicepods/tpch/sf1/accelerated/mysql-duckdb[file].yaml (#5591) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5591
- Fix Snowflake data connector rows ordering (#5599) by @sgrebnov in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5599
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5595) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5595
- fix: Update the tpch benchmark snapshots for: test/spicepods/tpch/sf1/accelerated/databricks[delta_lake]-arrow.yaml (#5594) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5594
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5589) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5589
- fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#5583) by @app/github-actions in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5583
- Downgrade DuckDB to 1.1.3 (#5607) by @phillipleblanc in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5607
- Add prepared statement integration tests (#5544) by @kczimm in https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/5544

Full Changelog: v1.1.2...v1.2.0

DataFusion v45 Highlights​

What's New in v1.2.0​

Contributors​

Cookbook Updates​

Upgrading​

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

Changelog​

DataFusion v45 Highlights

What's New in v1.2.0

Contributors

Cookbook Updates

Upgrading

What's Changed

Dependencies

Changelog