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Spice v1.6.0 (Aug 26, 2025)

August 27, 2025 · 22 min read

Senior Software Engineer at Spice AI

Announcing the release of Spice v1.6.0! 🔥

Spice 1.6.0 upgrades DataFusion to v48, reducing expressions memory footprint by ~50% for faster planning and lower memory usage, eliminating unnecessary projections in queries, optimizing string functions like ascii and character_length for up to 3x speedup, and accelerating unbounded aggregate window functions by 5.6x. The release adds Kafka and MongoDB connectors for real-time streaming and NoSQL data acceleration, supports OpenAI Responses API for advanced model interactions including OpenAI-hosted tools like web_search and code_interpreter, improves the OpenAI Embeddings Connector with usage tier configuration for higher throughput via increased concurrent requests, introduces Model2Vec embeddings for ultra-low-latency encoding, and improves the Amazon S3 Vectors engine to support multi-column primary keys.

What's New in v1.6.0

DataFusion v48 Highlights

Spice.ai is built on the DataFusion query engine. The v48 release brings:

Performance & Size Improvements 🚀: Expressions memory footprint was reduced by ~50% resulting in faster planning and lower memory usage, with planning times improved by 10-20%. There are now fewer unnecessary projections in queries. The string functions, ascii and character_length were optimized for improved performance, with character_length achieving up to 3x speedup. Queries with unbounded aggregate window functions have improved performance by 5.6 times via avoided unnecessary computation for constant results across partitions. The Expr struct size was reduced from 272 to 144 bytes.

New Features & Enhancements ✨: Support was added for ORDER BY ALL for easy ordering of all columns in a query.

See the Apache DataFusion 48.0.0 Blog for details.

Runtime Highlights

Amazon S3 Vectors Multi-Column Primary Keys: The Amazon S3 Vectors engine now supports datasets with multi-column primary keys. This enables vector indexes for datasets where more than one column forms the primary key, such as those splitting documents into chunks for retrieval contexts. For multi-column keys, Spice serializes the keys using arrow-json format, storing them as single string keys in the vector index.

Model2Vec Embeddings: Spice now supports model2vec static embeddings with a new model2vec embeddings provider, for sentence transformers up to 500x faster and 15x smaller, enabling scenarios requiring low latency and high-throughput encoding.

embeddings:
  - from: model2vec:minishlab/potion-base-8M # HuggingFace model
    name: potion
  - from: model2vec:path/to/my/local/model # local model
    name: local

Learn more in the Model2Dev Embeddings documentation.

Kafka Data Connector: Use from: kafka:<topic> to ingest data directly from Kafka topics for integration with existing Kafka-based event streaming infrastructure, providing real-time data acceleration and query without additional middleware.

Example Spicepod.yml:

- from: kafka:orders_events
  name: orders
  acceleration:
    enabled: true
    refresh_mode: append
  params:
    kafka_bootstrap_servers: server:9092

Learn more in the Kafka Data Connector documentation.

MongoDB Data Connector: Use from: mongodb:<dataset> to access and accelerate data stored in MongoDB, deployed on-premises or in the cloud.

Example spicepod.yml:

datasets:
  - from: mongodb:my_dataset
    name: my_dataset
    params:
      mongodb_host: localhost
      mongodb_db: my_database
      mongodb_user: my_user
      mongodb_pass: password

Learn more in the MongoDB Data Connector documentation.

OpenAI Responses API Support: The OpenAI Responses API (/v1/responses) is now supported, which is OpenAI's most advanced interface for generating model responses.

To enable the /v1/responses HTTP endpoint, set the responses_api parameter to enabled:

Example spicepod.yml:

models:
  - name: openai_model_using_responses_api
    from: openai:gpt-4.1
    params:
      openai_api_key: ${ secrets:OPENAI_API_KEY }
      responses_api: enabled # Enable the /v1/responses endpoint for this model

Example curl request:

curl http://localhost:8090/v1/responses \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-4.1",
    "input": "Tell me a three sentence bedtime story about Spice AI."
  }'

To use responses in spice chat, use the --responses flag.

Example:

spice chat --responses # Use the `/v1/responses` endpoint for all completions instead of `/v1/chat/completions`

Use OpenAI-hosted tools supported by Open AI's Responses API by specifying the openai_responses_tools parameter:

Example spicepod.yml:

models:
  - name: test
    from: openai:gpt-4.1
    params:
      openai_api_key: ${ secrets:SPICE_OPENAI_API_KEY }
      tools: sql, list_datasets
      responses_api: enabled
      openai_responses_tools: web_search, code_interpreter #  'code_interpreter' or 'web_search'

These OpenAI-specific tools are only available from the /v1/responses endpoint. Any other tools specified via the tools parameter are available from both the /v1/chat/completions and /v1/responses endpoints.

Learn more in the OpenAI Model Provider documentation.

OpenAI Embeddings & Models Connectors Usage Tier: The OpenAI Embeddings and Models Connectors now supports specifying account usage tier for embeddings and model requests, improving the performance of generating text embeddings or calling models during dataset load and search by increasing concurrent requests.

Example spicepod.yml:

embeddings:
  - from: openai:text-embedding-3-small
    name: openai_embed
    params:
      openai_usage_tier: tier1

By setting the usage tier to the matching usage tier for your OpenAI account, the Embeddings and Models Connector will increase the maximum number of concurrent requests to match the specified tier.

Learn more in the OpenAI Model Provider documentation.

Contributors

New Contributors

@krinart made their first contribution in github.com/spiceai/spiceai/pull/6573

Breaking Changes

No breaking changes.

Cookbook Updates

Added OpenAI Responses API - Use OpenAI's Responses API with Spice
Added Live Orders Analytics with Apache Kafka Data Connector - Combine real-time data streaming from Kafka with other datasets
Added MongoDB Data Connector - Use MongoDB as a data source with Spice

The Spice Cookbook includes 77 recipes to help you get started with Spice quickly and easily.

Upgrading

To upgrade to v1.6.0, use one of the following methods:

CLI:

spice upgrade

Homebrew:

brew upgrade spiceai/spiceai/spice

Docker:

Pull the spiceai/spiceai:1.6.0 image:

docker pull spiceai/spiceai:1.6.0

For available tags, see DockerHub.

Helm:

helm repo update
helm upgrade spiceai spiceai/spiceai

AWS Marketplace:

🎉 Spice is also now available in the AWS Marketplace!

What's Changed

Dependencies

DataFusion: Upgraded to v48
Rust: Upgraded from 1.86.0 to 1.87.0

Changelog

Support Streaming with Tool Calls (#6941) by @Advayp in #6941
Fix parameterized query planning in DataFusion (#6942) by @Jeadie in #6942
Update the UnableToLoadCredentials error with a pointer to docs (#6937) by @phillipleblanc in #6937
Fix spicecloud benchmark (#6935) by @krinart in #6935
[Debezium] Support for VariableScaleDecimal (#6934) by @krinart in #6934
Update to DF 48 (#6665) by @mach-kernel and @kczimm in #6665
Mark append-stream and CDC datasets as ready after first message (#6914) by @sgrebnov in #6914
Model2Vec embedding model support (#6846) by @mach-kernel in #6846
Update snapshot for S3 vector search test (#6920) by @Jeadie in #6920
remove [] from queryset in spicepod path for CI (#6919) by @Jeadie in #6919
Remove verbose tracing (#6915) by @Jeadie in #6915
Refactor how models supporting the Responses API are loaded (#6912) by @Advayp in #6912
Write tests for truncate formatting in arrow_tools and fix bug. (#6900) by @Jeadie in #6900
Support using the Responses API from spice chat (#6894) by @Advayp in #6894
Include GPT-5 into Text-To-SQL and Financebench benchmarks (#6907) by @sgrebnov in #6907
Better error message when credentials aren't loaded for S3 Vectors (#6910) by @phillipleblanc in #6910
Add tracing and system prompt support for the Responses API (#6893) by @Advayp in #6893
Constraint violation check is improved to control behavior when violations occur within a batch (#6897) by @phillipleblanc in #6897
fix: Multi-column text search with v1/search (#6905) by @peasee in #6905
fix: Correctly project text search primary keys to underlying projection (#6904) by @peasee in #6904
fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#6901) by @app/github-actions in #6901
In S3vector, do not pushdown on non-filterable columns (#6884) by @Jeadie in #6884
Run E2E Test CI macOS build on bigger runners (#6896) by @phillipleblanc in #6896
Enable configuration of the Responses API for the Azure model provider (#6891) by @Advayp in #6891
fix: Update benchmark snapshots (#6888) by @app/github-actions in #6888
Update OpenAPI specification for /v1/responses (#6889) by @Advayp in #6889
Add test to ensure tools are injected correctly in the Responses API (#6886) by @Advayp in #6886
Enable embeddings for append streams (#6878) by @sgrebnov in #6878
Show correct limit for EXPLAIN plans in S3VectorsQueryExec (#6852) by @Jeadie in #6852
Responses API support for Azure Open AI (#6879) by @Advayp in #6879
fix: Update search test case structure (#6865) by @peasee in #6865
Fix mongodb benchmark (#6883) by @phillipleblanc in #6883
Support multiple column primary keys for S3 vectors. (#6775) by @Jeadie in #6775
Kafka Data Connector: persist consumer between restarts (#6870) by @sgrebnov in #6870
Fix newlines in errors added in recent PRs (#6877) by @phillipleblanc in #6877
Add override parameter to force support for the Responses API (#6871) by @Advayp in #6871
Don't use metadata columns in VectorScanTableProvider (#6854) by @Jeadie in #6854
Add non-streaming tool call support (hosted and Spice tools) via the Responses API (#6869) by @Advayp in #6869
Update error guideline to remove newlines + remove newlines from error messages. (#6866) by @phillipleblanc in #6866
Remove void acceleration engine + optional table behaviors (#6868) by @phillipleblanc in #6868
Kafka Data Connector basic support (#6856) by @sgrebnov in #6856
Federated+Accelerated TPCH Benchmarks for MongoDB (#6788) by @krinart in #6788
Pass embeddings calculated in compute_index to the acceleration (#6792) by @phillipleblanc in #6792
Add non-streaming and streaming support for OpenAI Responses API endpoint (#6830) by @Advayp in #6830
Use latest version of OpenAI crate to resolve issues with Service Tier deserialization (#6853) by @Advayp in #6853
Update openapi.json (#6799) by @app/github-actions in #6799
Improve management message (#6850) by @lukekim in #6850
fix: Include FTS search column if it is the PK (#6836) by @peasee in #6836
Refactor Health Checks (#6848) by @Advayp in #6848
Introduce a Responses trait and LLM registry for model providers that support the OpenAI Responses API (#6798) by @Advayp in #6798
fix: Update datafusion-table-providers to include constraints (#6837) by @peasee in #6837
Bump postcard from 1.1.2 to 1.1.3 (#6841) by @app/dependabot in #6841
Bump governor from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1 (#6835) by @app/dependabot in #6835
Bump ctor from 0.2.9 to 0.5.0 (#6827) by @app/dependabot in #6827
Bump azure_core from 0.26.0 to 0.27.0 (#6826) by @app/dependabot in #6826
Bump rstest from 0.25.0 to 0.26.1 (#6825) by @app/dependabot in #6825
Use latest commit in our fork of async-openai (#6829) by @Advayp in #6829
Bump rustls from 0.23.27 to 0.23.31 (#6824) by @app/dependabot in #6824
Bump async-trait from 0.1.88 to 0.1.89 (#6823) by @app/dependabot in #6823
Bump hyper from 1.6.0 to 1.7.0 (#6814) by @app/dependabot in #6814
Bump serde_json from 1.0.140 to 1.0.142 (#6812) by @app/dependabot in #6812
Add s3 vector test retrieving vectors (#6786) by @Jeadie in #6786
fix: Allow v1/search with only FTS (#6811) by @peasee in #6811
Bump tantivy from 0.24.1 to 0.24.2 (#6806) by @app/dependabot in #6806
Bump tokio-util from 0.7.15 to 0.7.16 (#6810) by @app/dependabot in #6810
fix: Improve FTS index primary key handling (#6809) by @peasee in #6809
Bump logos from 0.15.0 to 0.15.1 (#6808) by @app/dependabot in #6808
Bump hf-hub from 0.4.2 to 0.4.3 (#6807) by @app/dependabot in #6807
Bump odbc-api from 13.0.1 to 13.1.0 (#6803) by @app/dependabot in #6803
fix: Spice search CLI with FTS supports string or slice unmarshalling (#6805) by @peasee in #6805
Bump uuid from 1.17.0 to 1.18.0 (#6797) by @app/dependabot in #6797
Bump reqwest from 0.12.22 to 0.12.23 (#6796) by @app/dependabot in #6796
Bump anyhow from 1.0.98 to 1.0.99 (#6795) by @app/dependabot in #6795
Bump clap from 4.5.41 to 4.5.45 (#6794) by @app/dependabot in #6794
Respect default MAX_DECODING_MESSAGE_SIZE (100MB) in Flight API (#6802) by @sgrebnov in #6802
Fix compilation errors caused by upgrading async-openai (#6793) by @Advayp in #6793
Remove outdated vector search benchmark (replaced with testoperator) (#6791) by @sgrebnov in #6791
Handle errors in vector ingestion pipeline (#6782) by @phillipleblanc in #6782
fix: Explicitly error when chunking is defined for vector engines (#6787) by @peasee in #6787
Make VectorScanTableProvider and VectorQueryTableProvider support multi-column primary keys (#6757) by @Jeadie in #6757
Use megascience/megascience Q+A dataset for text search testing. (#6702) by @Jeadie in #6702
Flight REPL autocomplete (#6589) by @krinart in #6589
use ref: github.event.pull_request.head.sha in integration_models.yml (#6780) by @Jeadie in #6780
fix: Move search telemetry calls in UDTF to scan (#6778) by @peasee in #6778
Fix Hugging Face models and embeddings loading in Docker (#6777) by @ewgenius in #6777
feat: Migrate bedrock rate limiter (#6773) by @peasee in #6773
Run the PR checks on the DEV runners (#6769) by @phillipleblanc in #6769
feat: add OpenAI models rate controller (#6767) by @peasee in #6767
Implement MongoDB data connector (#6594) by @krinart in #6594
fix: Use head ref for concurrency group (#6770) by @peasee in #6770
fix: Run enforce pulls with spice on pull_request_target (#6768) by @peasee in #6768
feat: Add OpenAI Embeddings Rate Controller (#6764) by @peasee in #6764
Move AWS SDK credential bridge integration test to the existing AWS SDK integration test run (#6766) by @phillipleblanc in #6766
Use Spice specific errors instead of OpenAIError in embedding module (#6748) by @kczimm in #6748
Use context in Glue Catalog Provider (#6763) by @Advayp in #6763
pin cargo-deny to previous version (#6762) by @kczimm in #6762
Bump actions/download-artifact from 4 to 5 (#6720) by @app/dependabot in #6720
Upgrade dependabot dependencies (#6754) by @phillipleblanc in #6754
Set E2E Test CI models build to 90 minute timeout (#6756) by @phillipleblanc in #6756
chore: upgrade to Rust 1.87.0 (#6614) by @kczimm in #6614
feat: Add initial runtime-rate-limiter crate (#6753) by @peasee in #6753
feat: Add more embedding traces, add MiniLM MTEB spicepod (#6742) by @peasee in #6742
Update QA analytics for release (#6740) by @Advayp in #6740
Always use 'returnData: true' for s3 vector query index (#6741) by @Jeadie in #6741
feat: Add Embedding and Search anonymous telemetry (#6737) by @peasee in #6737
Add 1.5.2 to SECURITY.md (#6739) by @ewgenius in #6739
Combine the Iceberg and Object Store AWS SDK bridges into one crate (#6718) by @Advayp in #6718
Updates to v1.5.2 release notes (#6736) by @lukekim in #6736
Update end game template - move glue catalog to catalogs section (#6732) by @ewgenius in #6732
Update v1.5.2.md (#6735) by @kczimm in #6735
Add note about S3 Vectors workaround (#6734) by @phillipleblanc in #6734
feat: Avoid joining for VectorScanTableProvider if the index is sufficient (#6714) by @peasee in #6714
update changelog (#6729) by @kczimm in #6729
remove unneeded autogenerated s3 vector code (#6715) by @Jeadie in #6715
fix: Set S3 vectors default limit to 30, add more tracing (#6712) by @peasee in #6712
docs: Add Hadoop cookbook to endgame template (#6708) by @peasee in #6708
Fix testoperator append mode compilation error (#6706) by @phillipleblanc in #6706
test: Add VectorScanTableProvider snapshot tests (#6701) by @peasee in #6701
feat: Add Hadoop catalog-mode benchmark (#6684) by @peasee in #6684
Move shared AWS crates used in bridges to workspace (#6705) by @Advayp in #6705
Use installation id to group connections (#6703) by @Advayp in #6703
Add Guardrails for AWS bedrock models (#6692) by @Jeadie in #6692
Update bedrock keys for CI. (#6693) by @Jeadie in #6693
Update acknowledgements (#6690) by @app/github-actions in #6690
ROADMAP updates Aug 1, 2025 (#6667) by @lukekim in #6667
Add retry logic for OpenAI embeddings creation (#6656) by @sgrebnov in #6656
Make models E2E chat test more robust (#6657) by @sgrebnov in #6657
Update Search GH Workflow to use Test Operator (#6650) by @sgrebnov in #6650
Score and P95 latency calculation for MTEB Quora-based vector search tests in Test Operator (#6640) by @sgrebnov in #6640
Fix multiple query error being classified as an internal error (#6635) by @Advayp in #6635
Add Support for S3 Table Buckets (#6573) by krinart in #6573
set MISTRALRS_METAL_PRECOMPILE=0 for metal (#6652) by @kczimm in #6652
Vector search to push down udtf limit argument into logical sort plan (#6636) by @mach-kernel in #6636
docs: Update qa_analytics.csv (#6643) by @peasee in #6643
Update SECURITY.md (#6642) by @Jeadie in #6642
docs: Update qa_analytics.csv (#6641) by @peasee in #6641
Separate token usage (#6619) by @Advayp in #6619
Fix typo in release notes (#6634) by @Advayp in #6634
Add environment variable for org token (#6633) by @Advayp in #6633
CDC: Compute embeddings on ingest (#6612) by @mach-kernel in #6612
Add view name to view creation errors (#6611) by @lukekim in #6611
Add core logic for running MTEB Quora-based vector search tests in Test Operator (#6607) by @sgrebnov in #6607
Revert "Update generate-openapi.yml (#6584)" (#6620) by @Jeadie in #6620
Non-accelerated views should report as ready only after all dependent datasets are ready (#6617) by @sgrebnov in #6617

What's New in v1.6.0​

DataFusion v48 Highlights​

Runtime Highlights​

Contributors​

New Contributors​

Breaking Changes​

Cookbook Updates​

Upgrading​

What's Changed​

Dependencies​

Changelog​

What's New in v1.6.0

DataFusion v48 Highlights

Runtime Highlights

Contributors

New Contributors

Breaking Changes

Cookbook Updates

Upgrading

What's Changed

Dependencies

Changelog