2 posts tagged with "ducklake"

Spice v2.0-rc.5 is now available! 🔥

v2.0.0-rc.5 is the fifth release candidate for advanced testing of v2.0, building on v2.0.0-rc.4.

This release completes the mTLS implementation across server endpoints and outbound connectors, adds MongoDB Change Streams and durable Kafka offset persistence as new CDC sources, expands DML write-back to PostgreSQL, Snowflake, and Arrow, promotes DuckLake to Beta, introduces user-defined functions, on-demand dataset loading, unified query cancellation, dynamic HTTP request headers and subquery-driven request parameters, provider-aware LLM prompt caching, and a long list of Cayenne performance improvements.

Highlights in this release candidate include:

• Spice Cayenne — CDC throughput, compaction and scan caching, synchronized partition commits, join filter propagation, parallel Vortex writes, lock-free deletion caches
• Mutual TLS (mTLS) — TLS cert hot-reload, public mTLS for HTTP and Flight (channel + identity modes), mTLS client certs for FlightSQL and Spice.ai connectors
• MongoDB Change Streams — native real-time CDC for MongoDB, no Debezium or Kafka required
• Kafka CDC offsets — offsets persisted in sidecar tables for durable, resumable Kafka CDC
• PostgreSQL DML — INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE write-back on PostgreSQL datasets
• Snowflake DML — INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE write-back on Snowflake datasets
• Arrow Primary Key Upserts — native upsert path using primary key matching
• DuckLake promoted to Beta — with INSERT support on catalog tables
• User-Defined Functions — define SQL UDFs in spicepods, plus remote UDFs over HTTP (Spice.ai Enterprise)
• Spatial SQL UDFs — optional geospatial UDFs (ST_*) for geometry workloads
• On-Demand Dataset Loading — datasets can be deferred and loaded on first reference
• Unified Query Cancellation — Ctrl-C and HTTP request cancellation propagate across all execution paths
• Dynamic HTTP Connector — pass-through request headers, subquery-driven params, and JSON schema decomposition
• HTTP Rate-Control persistence — rate-limit state persisted in object storage across restarts
• refresh_mode: snapshot — point-in-time snapshot acceleration with SQLite/Turso WAL flushing
• Storage-profile accelerator tuning — accelerators auto-tune defaults based on local SSD, EBS-class disk, or tmpfs
• Provider-Aware LLM Prompt Caching — automatic prompt caching for OpenAI-compatible providers that support it
• Responses API — support across all model providers with streaming response.output_text.delta, plus Authorization: Bearer header support

What's New in v2.0.0-rc.5​

Cayenne Improvements​

Significant performance work across Spice Cayenne-backed catalogs and accelerators.

• Ingest throughput: End-to-end improvements to CDC ingest, background compaction, and a new scan-result cache for hot reads; parallel Vortex partition writes; lock-free deletion caches with bloom-prefiltered probes; background retention with CDC pipelining; SQLite metastore pool scaled to 32 for high-concurrency mutation workloads.
• Data inlining: Small writes are serialized as Arrow IPC and committed directly into the Cayenne metastore (cayenne_inlined_data), bypassing the staged Vortex write path for low-latency ingest. Inline upserts atomically rewrite existing inline rows instead of emitting side delete markers, and inline data remains query-visible via an in-memory union scan with a generation-keyed decode cache. Inline rows are checkpointed to Vortex when row, segment, or byte thresholds are reached. Defaults are refresh-mode aware: inline writes are enabled by default for high-frequency caching, changes, and fast append workloads and disabled for full, snapshot, and slower append.
• Query planning: Join filter propagation across equi-join keys (gated behind runtime.params.cayenne_filter_propagation), range fallback for large join filters, hot-path clone elimination, and IN-list rewrites for large filter lists.
• Correctness: Synchronized partition commits across partitions, correct NULL-sentinel handling for nullable partition expressions (e.g. bucket(N, col)), Vortex panic fix on highly compressible data, and live reads through expired protected snapshots.
• Catalog and platform: Refresh-mode-aware compaction defaults, rejection of non-distributed Cayenne catalog configurations, and a vendored Vortex DataFusion integration for faster iteration on the Cayenne planner.

Mutual TLS (mTLS)​

Spice.ai Enterprise feature. See Enterprise Security.

Spice now supports full mutual TLS for both HTTP and Arrow Flight endpoints.

TLS cert hot-reload (#10727): The Spice runtime watches for SIGHUP and reloads TLS certificates without restarting, enabling cert rotation with zero downtime.

Public mTLS for HTTP and Flight (#10753): Two client_auth_mode values control how the server handles client certificates:

• request — optional mTLS: the server requests a client cert but accepts connections without one (useful for migration windows).
• required — strict mTLS: the server requires a valid client cert signed by the configured CA.

mTLS client certs for FlightSQL and Spice.ai connectors (#10764): Outbound connections from the FlightSQL and Spice.ai data connectors can now present client certificates for mutual authentication with upstream services.

Example configuration:

runtime:
  tls:
    enabled: true
    certificate_file: /etc/spice/tls/server.crt
    key_file: /etc/spice/tls/server.key
    client_auth_mode: required
    client_auth_ca_file: /etc/spice/tls/client-ca.crt

MongoDB Change Streams​

MongoDB datasets configured with refresh_mode: changes now stream changes from MongoDB Change Streams into any local accelerator (#10813), providing real-time CDC without Debezium or Kafka.

Example configuration:

datasets:
  - from: mongodb:my_collection
    name: my_collection
    params:
      host: my-cluster.mongodb.net
      db: mydb
    acceleration:
      enabled: true
      engine: duckdb
      refresh_mode: changes

CDC Improvements​

See Change Data Capture (CDC) for an overview of CDC in Spice.

• Kafka CDC offset persistence (#10823): Kafka CDC offsets are persisted in sidecar tables for durable, resumable streams. On restart or failover, Spice resumes from the last committed offset.
• Pipelined CDC ingestion (#10676): Source reads overlap with batch apply, with additional batching, envelope coalescing, and nullability propagation improvements across the apply pipeline.
• Debezium schema evolution fix (#10144): Schema changes in Debezium-sourced datasets no longer break dataset initialization on reload (fixes #9782).

PostgreSQL DML Support​

The PostgreSQL data connector now supports write-back via INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE operations (#10446). Combined with the existing read-side federation, PostgreSQL-backed datasets can serve as full read/write tables. The PostgreSQL Catalog connector additionally exposes foreign-key metadata for NSQL and query planning (#10849).

Snowflake DML Support​

The Snowflake data connector now supports write-back via INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE operations (#10747), complementing its existing read capabilities.

Arrow Primary Key Upserts​

Arrow-accelerated tables now support native upsert operations using primary key matching (#10749), providing efficient update-or-insert semantics for in-memory datasets.

DuckLake Promoted to Beta​

The DuckLake Catalog and Data Connector are promoted to Beta quality (#10743).

DuckLake catalog tables with read_write access now support INSERT operations (#10744), enabling full read/write workflows against DuckLake-backed catalogs. The DuckLake connector also gains a series of correctness fixes for downcast, module registration, schema discovery, and S3 credentials (#10650).

User-Defined Functions​

Spice now supports user-defined functions (UDFs) as a first-class spicepod component (#10571), letting you define reusable SQL functions in the spicepod or invoke remote functions over HTTP. The runtime also gains table user functions with HTTP server gating (#10675).

A security fix closes a remote-UDF SSRF vector (#10757).

Spatial SQL UDFs​

Spice now ships an optional set of geospatial SQL UDFs (ST_*) for geometry workloads (#10833). The functions are gated behind a build feature and can be invoked from any SQL surface.

On-Demand Dataset Loading​

Datasets can now be marked for on-demand loading (#10629). Deferred datasets are registered with a declared schema at startup (#10669) and only fully resolve when first referenced, reducing startup time and memory footprint for spicepods with many seldom-used datasets.

Spicepods also gain columns[].type and columns[].nullable (#10661) with a lenient type parser for declaring schemas inline.

Unified Query Cancellation​

All query execution paths — HTTP, Flight, FlightSQL, MCP, and internal — now honour a unified cancellation signal (#10390). When a client disconnects, presses Ctrl-C in the REPL, or cancels an in-flight HTTP request, the corresponding query is cancelled end-to-end, freeing resources promptly.

Dynamic HTTP Connector​

The HTTP data connector gains dynamic request headers parameterised from query predicates (#10604), subquery-driven request parameters for fan-out queries (#10636), HTTP response metadata as queryable columns via JSON schema decomposition (#10679), no-limit pagination (#10673), and shared rate-control across HTTP-based connectors using the same backend host (#10648).

HTTP Rate-Control Persistence​

The HTTP rate-control state (per-endpoint throttle counters) is now persisted in object storage (#10697), ensuring rate limits survive restarts and are consistent across replicas. Rate-control metrics now use an origin label rather than the connector name for cleaner aggregation (#10689).

The metrics HTTP endpoint (/metrics) is also independently rate-limited (#10162) to prevent scraping from impacting query serving.

refresh_mode: snapshot​

Spice.ai Enterprise feature. See Acceleration Snapshots.

A new refresh_mode: snapshot provides point-in-time snapshot acceleration (#10651), with SQLite and Turso WAL flushing and a Cayenne metastore slice integration so accelerated readers see a consistent snapshot while writes continue.

Storage-Profile Accelerator Tuning​

Acceleration configs gain a new storage_profile field (#10913) with values auto (default), local_ssd, ebs, and tmpfs. Under auto, the runtime detects whether the acceleration store is backed by local SSD, EBS-class network disk, or tmpfs, and applies storage-aware defaults across DuckDB, partitioned DuckDB, SQLite, Turso, and Cayenne file-mode accelerators. Explicit per-accelerator parameters always override the profile defaults.

Provider-Aware LLM Prompt Caching​

LLM calls automatically use provider-aware prompt caching (#10645) when the configured model provider supports it (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI). System prompts and tool descriptions are marked for caching so repeated invocations within the cache window reuse the provider-side cached prefix, reducing latency and cost.

A new searchable registry mode for LLM tools (#10647) lets agents discover tools by semantic search rather than enumerating all tools in the system prompt, which scales to large tool inventories.

Responses API Improvements​

The Responses API is now supported across all configured model providers (#10724). Streaming delta events via response.output_text.delta are also supported (#10828). The runtime now also accepts Authorization: Bearer headers in addition to x-api-key, bumps async-openai, and stops populating FunctionToolCall.id so OpenAI-compatible servers can assign the ID themselves (#10911).

Distributed Cluster Improvements​

Spice.ai Enterprise feature. See High Availability.

• Per-request executor readiness gate (#10860): /v1/ready on schedulers waits for a configurable quorum of executors before returning healthy, enabling proper rolling deployments.
• Ballista S3 shuffle reads under cluster mode (#10910): The shuffle reader builds its S3 client from the executor pod's environment, matching the writer. Async queries with runtime.params.shuffle_location: s3://... now complete instead of failing with AccessDenied on shuffle fetches.
• Flattened scheduler config (#10450): runtime.scheduler.partition_management.* fields are flattened directly onto runtime.scheduler and renamed under the canonical "partition assignment" terminology. See Breaking Changes.

Caching & Search​

Improvements across Caching and Search:

• Per-principal cache namespacing (#10702): SQL, search, and caching-accelerator caches are now namespaced per authenticated principal, so cached results never cross identity boundaries.
• DuckDB HNSW vector indexes (#10695, #10674, #10668): DuckDB-accelerated views support HNSW vector indexes for vector search, vector search SQL is rewritten to activate HNSW_INDEX_SCAN, and HNSW indexes are preserved across data refresh.

Security Improvements​

See Authentication and TLS for configuring Spice security.

• API key timing-position leak and remote-UDF SSRF (#10757): Closed a timing-based position-disclosure leak in API key comparison and blocked SSRF via remote UDF endpoint parameters.
• Configurable allowed_hosts for MCP (#10638): MCP servers can be restricted to an explicit allowlist of upstream hosts.

SQL, Query, and Developer Experience​

See the SQL Reference for the full SQL surface area.

• SQL REPL expanded view (#10797): Toggle \x in the REPL for a vertical key-value layout on wide result sets.
• FlightSQL Substrait plan support (#10761): The Spice runtime now implements CommandStatementSubstraitPlan, enabling clients that submit plans as Substrait-encoded protobuf.
• MCP auth for streamable HTTP tools (#10927): Streamable HTTP MCP tools support native authentication via mcp_auth_token and mcp_headers, both with full Spice secret expansion.
• Elasticsearch FTS engine config and index lifecycle (#10672): Direct FTS engine configuration plus index lifecycle and ingestion controls for the Elasticsearch connector.
• Self-hosted Spice connector (#10546): Connect Spice to another self-hosted Spice runtime as a federated source.

Connector Bug Fixes​

Notable correctness fixes across the Data Connectors: DynamoDB Streams retry on transient errors (#10794) and typed-NULL handling in DML (#10511); ScyllaDB physical filter pushdown disabled to fix incorrect results (#10772); MSSQL TOP N pushdown for non-nullable sort columns (#10621); DuckLake include filter applied (#10738); DuckDB DELETE/UPDATE on full and caching refresh modes (#10632); checked arithmetic for Turso integer-millis and timestamp-to-nanosecond conversions (#10786, #10666); and Flight GetFlightInfo/DoGet schema parity (#10864). See the Changelog for the full list.

Dependency Updates​

Contributors​

• @ewgenius
• @Jeadie
• @krinart
• @lukekim
• @peasee
• @phillipleblanc
• @sgrebnov

Breaking Changes​

Flattened runtime.scheduler configuration (#10450): The nested runtime.scheduler.partition_management block has been flattened and renamed to use the canonical "partition assignment" terminology. Migrate as follows:

# Before
runtime:
  scheduler:
    partition_management:
      interval: 30s
      max_assignments_per_cycle: 16
      discovery_timeout: 10s

# After
runtime:
  scheduler:
    partition_assignment_interval: 30s
    max_assignments_per_interval: 16
    partition_discovery_timeout: 10s

Cookbook Updates​

No new cookbook recipes.

The Spice Cookbook includes 86 recipes to help you get started with Spice quickly and easily.

Upgrading​

To upgrade to v2.0.0-rc.5, use one of the following methods:

CLI:

spice upgrade v2.0.0-rc.5

Homebrew:

brew upgrade spiceai/spiceai/spice

Docker:

Pull the spiceai/spiceai:2.0.0-rc.5 image:

docker pull spiceai/spiceai:2.0.0-rc.5

For available tags, see DockerHub.

Helm:

helm repo update
helm upgrade spiceai spiceai/spiceai --version 2.0.0-rc.5

AWS Marketplace:

Spice is available in the AWS Marketplace.

What's Changed​

Changelog​

• Enable DML support for PostgreSQL data connector by @phillipleblanc in #10446
• feat(postgres): support inline PEM sslrootcert by @claudespice in #10578
• Add foreign key metadata discovery to PostgreSQL Catalog by @sgrebnov in #10849
• Add Snowflake DML support by @lukekim in #10747
• Add MongoDB Change Streams support by @lukekim in #10813
• Add user-defined functions by @lukekim in #10571
• Add table user functions and gate HTTP servers by @lukekim in #10675
• feat: add on-demand dataset loading by @phillipleblanc in #10629
• feat(runtime): declared-schema deferred datasets by @phillipleblanc in #10669
• feat(spicepod, runtime): add columns[].type / nullable + lenient type parser by @phillipleblanc in #10661
• Replace external smb crate with internal SMB 3.1.1 client by @phillipleblanc in #10516
• Add unified query cancellation across all paths by @lukekim in #10390
• Add dynamic HTTP request headers by @lukekim in #10604
• feat(http): Support dynamic HTTP connector request params from subqueries by @lukekim in #10636
• feat(http): pass through HTTP metadata columns with JSON schema decomposition by @lukekim in #10679
• Add nolimit HTTP pagination max pages by @lukekim in #10673
• Add shared HTTP rate control for connectors by @lukekim in #10648
• Use origin label instead of name for HTTP rate control metrics by @lukekim in #10689
• fix(http): reject OR across different HTTP filter columns by @lukekim in #10625
• Add provider-aware LLM prompt caching by @lukekim in #10645
• Add searchable registry mode for LLM tools by @lukekim in #10647
• feat: refresh_mode: snapshot + SQLite/Turso WAL flush + Cayenne metastore slice by @phillipleblanc in #10651
• feat: per-principal cache namespacing for SQL/search/caching-accelerator by @lukekim in #10702
• Add self-hosted Spice connector support by @phillipleblanc in #10546
• Add Delta Lake Azure tenant parameter by @phillipleblanc in #10671
• Support OAuth2 client credentials in 'spice cloud login' by @ewgenius in #10586
• Add configurable allowed_hosts for MCP by @lukekim in #10638
• fix: make Helm chart probes configurable by @peasee in #10696
• Strip high-cardinality datasets dim from anonymous telemetry by @lukekim in #10711
• feat(elasticsearch): direct FTS engine config + index lifecycle and ingestion controls by @lukekim in #10672
• Add DuckDB HNSW vector index support for accelerated views by @sgrebnov in #10695
• Rewrite DuckDB vector search SQL to activate HNSW_INDEX_SCAN by @sgrebnov in #10674
• Fix DuckDB HNSW vector indexes lost after data refresh by @sgrebnov in #10668
• Fix DuckDB DELETE/UPDATE on full and caching refresh mode datasets by @phillipleblanc in #10632
• Fix DuckLake connector: downcast, module registration, schema discovery, and S3 credentials by @sgrebnov in #10650
• Fix federation pushing denied functions inside subqueries to remote engines by @phillipleblanc in #10692
• fix(caching): honour refresh_on_startup: always in caching mode by @phillipleblanc in #10594
• fix(iceberg): rebuild storage factory when Hadoop catalog scheme is inferred by @sgrebnov in #10601
• Pipeline CDC ingestion: overlap source reads with batch apply by @lukekim in #10676
• fix: add NULL check to CDC primary key extraction by @lukekim in #10684
• Properly handle nullability during CDC processing by @krinart in #10803
• Flatten scheduler config and rename partition management → partition assignment by @lukekim in #10450
• Improve NSQL UX and harden internal LLM tools by @lukekim in #10715
• Support Responses API across model providers by @lukekim in #10724
• Update xAI default model and handle Grok model retirements by @Jeadie in #10723
• Improve cli table layout by @krinart in #10725
• TLS cert hot-reload (mTLS plan M1) by @phillipleblanc in #10727
• Fix DuckLake catalog include filter being ignored by @phillipleblanc in #10738
• Promote DuckLake Catalog and Data Connector to Beta quality by @sgrebnov in #10743
• feat(ducklake): Support INSERT on catalog tables with read_write access by @sgrebnov in #10744
• perf(cdc): coalesce envelopes and overlap commits in apply pipeline by @lukekim in #10745
• feat: Allow full version tags in spicepod version by @peasee in #10748
• Add Arrow primary key upserts by @lukekim in #10749
• fix(snapshot): keep refresh_mode snapshot read-only by @phillipleblanc in #10752
• feat(tls): public mTLS for HTTP and Flight (channel + identity modes) by @phillipleblanc in #10753
• perf(cayenne): lock-free deletion caches with bloom-prefiltered probe by @lukekim in #10756
• fix(security): close API key timing-position leak and remote-UDF SSRF by @lukekim in #10757
• Fix 'wait_until_dependent_tables_are_ready' for catalogs by @phillipleblanc in #10758
• Fixes for views and resolved tables on 'spice refresh' CLI by @phillipleblanc in #10759
• Implement FlightSQL CommandStatementSubstraitPlan support by @lukekim in #10761
• feat(connectors): mTLS client cert support for flightsql and spiceai connectors by @phillipleblanc in #10764
• Allow arbitrary filenames when specifying spicepod path + kind validation by @krinart in #10777
• fix: ignore field metadata in schema compatibility check in index_table_scan by @Jeadie in #10778
• Display pushed-down limits in EXPLAIN TREE output by @lukekim in #10779
• fix: enable streaming append for Kafka with Cayenne accelerator by @lukekim in #10780
• fix: bound chunked-index intermediate batch size to prevent OOM by @phillipleblanc in #10783
• fix: label all columns in spice cloud metrics table output by @claudespice in #10784
• fix: use checked arithmetic for Turso integer-millis timestamp read path by @claudespice in #10786
• fix: use checked arithmetic in timestamp-to-nanosecond conversions by @claudespice in #10666
• Upgrade to DuckDB v1.5.2 by @sgrebnov in #10788
• Improve CDC ingestion performance by @lukekim in #10789
• Fix tool_search/tool_invoke spans by @lukekim in #10791
• Add Cayenne inline mutations and benchmark coverage by @lukekim in #10792
• Ensure we always resolve table names in distributed mode/metadata by @Jeadie in #10793
• Remove permanent errors from DynamoDB Streams by @krinart in #10794
• Add expanded view mode for wide table display in SQL REPL by @lukekim in #10797
• Fix Cayenne CDC schema mismatch error by @sgrebnov in #10800
• Executors should create catalog tables on join by @Jeadie in #10807
• Add compressed file support for listing connectors by @lukekim in #10809
• Improve Cayenne mutation, scan, and inline memtable scaling by @lukekim in #10811
• Add range fallback for large join filters by @lukekim in #10816
• Improve Cayenne join filter pushdown by @lukekim in #10818
• Synchronize Cayenne partition commits across partitions by @phillipleblanc in #10819
• fix: Deny nondistributed cayenne catalog by @peasee in #10821
• Enable parallel Cayenne Vortex writes by @lukekim in #10822
• Expand Arrow type handling in formatting and Elasticsearch by @lukekim in #10825
• Add response.output_text.delta to responses API by @krinart in #10828
• feat(cayenne): add join filter propagation and no-spill Q21 planning by @lukekim in #10840
• Upgrade Turso to v0.6.0 by @sgrebnov in #10843
• feat(cli): add spice feedback command to open community Slack by @lukekim in #10856
• Upgrade iceberg to v0.9.1 by @sgrebnov in #10859
• feat(cluster): per-request executor readiness gate on /v1/ready by @phillipleblanc in #10860
• fix: Require dim-side statistics for CayennePropagateFilterAcrossEquiJoinKeys by @sgrebnov in #10863
• fix: Debezium schema evolution breaks dataset init on reload by @claudespice in #10144
• fix(mssql): Push topK limit to SQL Server for non-nullable sort columns by @Jeadie in #10621
• fix(ScyllaDB): disable physical filter pushdown by @sgrebnov in #10772
• fix: handle typed NULLs and prevent overflow in DynamoDB DML type conversions by @krinart in #10511
• fix: use InsertOp::Overwrite in DynamoDB bootstrap scan_and_overwrite_accelerator by @krinart in #10639
• Improve DynamoDB Bootstrap performance by @krinart in #10616
• fix: preserve field and schema metadata in Vortex type transformation by @lukekim in #10628
• fix: GH connector - explicitly use AWS LC RS crypto provider for jwt by @phillipleblanc in #10619
• fix: add snapshot mode guards to delete_from/update and delegate DML in SwappableTableProvider by @phillipleblanc in #10685
• Persist HTTP rate-control state in object storage by @lukekim in #10697
• Rate limit metrics HTTP endpoint by @lukekim in #10162
• feat(geo): add optional spatial SQL UDF support by @lukekim in #10833
• feat(cayenne): CDC throughput, compaction, scan caching, and benchmarks by @lukekim in #10852
• fix(cayenne): fix Vortex panic on highly compressible data by @sgrebnov in #10855
• fix(cayenne): Read live protected snapshots after cleanup grace period by @sgrebnov in #10901
• fix: Disable Cayenne HashJoin rewriter optimizer by @sgrebnov in #10882
• Fix GetFlightInfo vs DoGet Flight Schema by @krinart in #10864
• fix(search): preserve column casing in /v1/search primary key plumbing by @claudespice in #10909
• fix(object-store): dedupe s3 url style auto-detection log by @phillipleblanc in #10898
• Improve Spice CLI manifest editing and direct command modes by @lukekim in #10815
• Persist Kafka CDC offsets in sidecar tables by @lukekim in #10823
• feat(task-history): record Ballista stages for distributed queries by @phillipleblanc in #10831
• Add '#[deny(clippy::missing_trait_methods)]' to wrapper/delegation trait impls by @Jeadie in #10795
• Optimize Cayenne catalog maintenance paths by @lukekim in #10904
• Centralize DuckDB settings for accelerator by @ewgenius in #10895
• deps(ballista): bump to 47e2b494 to fix S3 shuffle reads under cluster mode by @phillipleblanc in #10910
• Authorization header + Bump async-openai + responses_adapter fix by @krinart in #10911
• Tune accelerators by storage profile by @lukekim in #10913
• feat: add dataset-level on_schema_change config by @lukekim in #10908
• Handle NULL sentinel for nullable partition expressions by @Jeadie in #10880
• fix: Remove Cayenne Catalog from catalog registration by @peasee in #10914
• Add catalog name to foreign key metadata in postgres catalog by @Jeadie in #10917
• Cayenne perf: eliminate redundant clones, PK point-lookup fanout fix, IN-list rewrite + microbench coverage by @lukekim in #10916
• fix(turso-shared): retry on Turso BEGIN CONCURRENT "Write-write conflict" by @lukekim in #10946
• Vendor Vortex DataFusion for Cayenne by @lukekim in #10933
• perf(cayenne): background retention + enable CDC pipelining for retention-configured tables by @lukekim in #10936
• feat(cayenne): scale metastore pool to 32 + vs_duckdb_scaling benches (1→128 concurrency, sqlite + turso lanes) by @lukekim in #10943
• feat(mcp): support auth for streamable HTTP tools by @phillipleblanc in #10927
• Explicit error if v1/search requests a table without search index by @Jeadie in #10968
• Fix spicepod loading failure when directory name contains dots by @sgrebnov in #10958
• Extend append tests with arrow engine configurations by @sgrebnov in #10959
• Remove dataset on_schema_change Policy from rc.5 release notes by @sgrebnov in #10964
• Skip tpcds_q78 for Cayenne engine at SF100 by @sgrebnov in #10966
• fix: Update benchmark snapshots May-20 by @app/github-actions in #10952
• Fix #10951: UdtfExec invariant Vec lengths must match children count by @phillipleblanc in #10953
• docs(release): update v2.0.0-rc.5 notes with latest trunk PRs by @lukekim in #10949
• Remove eval related things for v2.0.0 by @Jeadie in #10945
• build(deps): bump ubuntu from 24.04 to 26.04 in the docker-dependencies group by @app/dependabot in #10883
• fix: Add publish = false to chbench-driver by @sgrebnov in #10939

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v2.0.0-rc.4...v2.0.0-rc.5

Announcing the release of Spice v2.0-rc.1! 🚀

v2.0.0-rc.1 is the first release candidate for early testing of v2.0.

Highlights in this release candidate include:

• Active-Active Highly-Available Distributed Query that is object-store-native and built on Apache Ballista, with dynamic cluster sizing, distributed ingestion, and cluster observability
• Spice Cayenne RC with staged append writes, file-based retention deletes, composite partitioning, and distributed ingestion
• DataFusion v52.2.0 Upgrade with sort pushdown, a new merge join, and dynamic filters
• DDL Support for CREATE TABLE and DROP TABLE via SQL for Iceberg and Cayenne catalogs
• DuckLake Catalog & Data Connector for lakehouse-style data management
• GCS Data Connector (Alpha) for Google Cloud Storage
• Rust CLI Rewrite for a unified single-binary experience
• Dependency upgrades including DuckDB v1.4.4, delta_kernel v0.18.2, and mistral.rs

Spice v2.0 includes several breaking changes. Review the breaking changes section before upgrading.

Distribution Changes​

AI/ML support including local LLM/ML model and hosted LLM inference is now included in the default Spice build and image. The separate models build variant has been removed.

With models now included by default, the data-only distribution (without AI/ML support) is only published in nightly builds. Official production-ready data-only distributions are available exclusively through Spice Cloud and the Enterprise release.

A new Network Attached Storage (NAS) distribution with built-in SMB and NFS data connector support is also now available in nightly builds and with Spice.ai Enterprise.

For more details, see the Distributions documentation.

What's New in v2.0.0-rc.1​

Active-Active HA Distributed Query​

Distributed Query exits Beta with active-active highly-available object-store-based distributed query.

Distributed query supports two execution modes:

• Synchronous: Queries for accelerated datasets are distributed across executors and results are streamed back in real-time. Non-accelerated datasets execute only on the scheduler. Best for interactive queries where low latency is critical.
• Asynchronous: Queries are submitted via the new HTTP-only /v1/queries API and results are materialized to object storage for later retrieval. Best for long-running analytical workloads, batch processing, and non-accelerated datasets in distributed mode.

Key improvements:

• Dynamic Cluster Sizing: The query planner automatically adjusts parallelism based on the number of active executors in the cluster, ensuring optimal resource utilization as nodes are added or removed.
• Distributed Ingestion: Data ingestion for partitioned accelerated tables is now distributed across executor nodes, enabling higher throughput and parallel data loading in cluster mode. Regular (non-partitioned) accelerated tables do not distribute ingestion loads.
• Synchronous Execution on Scheduler: /v1/sql and FlightSQL queries now execute synchronously on the scheduler when appropriate, reducing inter-node overhead for queries that don't benefit from distribution.
• Faster Failure Detection: Executor heartbeat timeout reduced from 180s to 30s, enabling the cluster to quickly detect and respond to executor failures.
• Cluster Observability: New metrics and Grafana dashboard for monitoring distributed query clusters.

Spice Cayenne Improvements​

The Spice Cayenne data accelerator exits Beta with significant reliability and performance improvements:

• Staged Append Writes: WAL-based staged append writes prevent partial writes and data loss on stream errors. Batches are written to a WAL file before being committed, ensuring atomicity.
• File-Based Retention Deletes: Time-based retention now supports file-level deletes for both position-based and primary-key tables, reducing I/O overhead compared to row-level deletion.
• Multiple Partition Expressions: Support for composite partitioning with partition_by: [col1, col2] using hierarchical path-like keys (e.g., 2025/10/15).
• Distributed Ingestion: Cayenne catalog now supports distributed ingestion across executor nodes in cluster mode, including UPDATE operations.
• Improved Robustness: Fixed CDC edge case where DELETE + UPSERT sequences could produce duplicate primary keys across protected snapshots. Improved upsert handling during runtime restarts.

DataFusion v52.2.0 Upgrade​

Apache DataFusion has been upgraded to v52.2.0, bringing significant performance improvements, new query features, and enhanced extensibility.

Performance Improvements:

• Faster CASE Expressions: Lookup-table-based evaluation for certain CASE expressions avoids repeated evaluation, accelerating common ETL patterns
• MIN/MAX Aggregate Dynamic Filters: Queries with MIN/MAX aggregates now create dynamic filters during scan to prune files and rows as tighter bounds are discovered during execution
• New Merge Join: Rewritten sort-merge join (SMJ) operator with speedups of three orders of magnitude in pathological cases (e.g., TPC-H Q21: minutes → milliseconds)
• Caching Improvements: New statistics cache for file metadata avoids repeatedly recalculating statistics, significantly improving planning time. A prefix-aware list-files cache accelerates evaluating partition predicates for Hive partitioned tables
• Improved Hash Join Filter Pushdown: Build-side hash map contents are now passed dynamically to probe-side scans for pruning files, row groups, and individual rows

Major Features:

• Sort Pushdown to Scans: Sorts are pushed into data sources, enabling ~30x performance improvement on pre-sorted data with top-K queries. Parquet scans now reverse row group order for DESC queries on ASC-sorted files
• TableProvider supports DELETE and UPDATE: New hooks for DELETE and UPDATE statements in the TableProvider trait, enabling Iceberg and Cayenne connectors to implement SQL DELETE and UPDATE operations
• More Extensible SQL Planning: New RelationPlanner API for extending SQL planning for FROM clauses, enabling support for vendor-specific SQL dialects

DDL Support for Iceberg and Cayenne​

SQL Schema Management: Spice now supports CREATE TABLE and DROP TABLE DDL operations for Iceberg and Cayenne catalogs via FlightSQL and the /v1/sql API. DML validation has been updated for catalog-level writability.

DuckLake Catalog & Data Connector​

Lakehouse-Style Data Management: New DuckLake catalog and data connector enable lakehouse-style data management with DuckDB as the metadata catalog and object storage for data files. DuckLake provides ACID transactions, time travel, and schema evolution on top of Parquet files.

GCS Data Connector (Alpha)​

Google Cloud Storage Support: New Google Cloud Storage data connector enables federated queries against data stored in GCS buckets, with Iceberg table support.

Rust CLI Rewrite​

Unified Single-Binary Experience: The Spice CLI has been completely rewritten from Go to Rust, eliminating the Go dependency and providing a single spice binary built from the same codebase as spiced. This improves startup performance, reduces distribution size, and ensures consistent behavior between CLI and runtime.

Key Features:

• Full Feature Parity: All 27+ CLI commands re-implemented in Rust with identical behavior
• New spice query Command: Interactive REPL for async queries via the /v1/queries API with multi-line SQL input, spinner progress indicator, Ctrl+C cancellation, and partial query ID matching
• --output=json Flag: Machine-readable JSON output for CLI commands, enabling scripting and automation
• spice login --output: New output modes (env, json, keychain) for flexible credential management
• spice cloud metrics: New command for Spice Cloud deployment metrics

Models Included by Default​

Local LLM/ML model inference (via mistral.rs) is now included in the default Spice build. The separate models build variant has been removed. This simplifies installation and ensures all users have access to local AI inference capabilities.

Error Propagation for Dataset and Model Status APIs​

The /v1/datasets and /v1/models APIs now return structured error information when a component is in an Error state. The ?status=true query parameter must be passed to retrieve the real-time component status, including the error state and details. Previously, the status field only indicated Error with no further detail. Now, two new fields are included when ?status=true is specified:

• error: A structured object with category, type, and code fields for programmatic error handling (e.g. { "category": "dataset", "type": "auth", "code": "dataset.auth" }).
• error_message: A human-readable description of why the component entered an error state.

These fields are only present when ?status=true is passed and the component is in an error state.

Example /v1/datasets?status=true response:

[
  {
    "from": "postgres:syncs",
    "name": "daily_journal",
    "replication_enabled": false,
    "acceleration_enabled": true,
    "status": "Ready"
  },
  {
    "from": "databricks:hive_metastore.default.messages",
    "name": "messages",
    "replication_enabled": false,
    "acceleration_enabled": true,
    "status": "Error",
    "error": {
      "category": "dataset",
      "type": "auth",
      "code": "dataset.auth"
    },
    "error_message": "Unable to authenticate with datasource credentials"
  }
]

The spice datasets and spice models CLI commands now include an ERROR column that displays the error message for any component in an error state.

Additional Dependency Upgrades​

Other Improvements​

• Spicepod v2 Support: Spicepods now support version v2, and spice init generates spicepod.yaml files with version: v2 by default while maintaining backward compatibility for existing v1 spicepods.
• x.ai Models: x.ai models now exclusively use the /v1/responses endpoint with rate limiting support.
• HuggingFace Chat Templates: Added support for chat templates in HuggingFace model configurations.
• Databricks SQL Dialect: Added Databricks SQL dialect for DataFusion unparser, improving federation query generation.
• Snowflake: Added snowflake_private_key parameter for key-pair authentication.
• Acceleration Metrics: New rows_written, bytes_written, and dataset_acceleration_size_bytes metrics for acceleration refresh ingestion.
• Refresh SQL UDFs: Core scalar UDFs are now enabled in refresh SQL expressions.
• FlightSQL: Fixed TLS connection handling for grpc+tls:// endpoints with custom CA certificate support.
• FlightSQL: Fixed schema consistency by expanding view types and verifying field names.
• Hash Index: Fixed query correctness when hash index is used with additional filters.
• Results Cache: Fixed schema preservation for empty query results.
• Query Nullability: Reconciled execution stream nullability with logical plan schema.
• Schema Evolution: Graceful handling of schema evolution mismatch errors during data refresh.
• Internal YAML Parser: Replaced deprecated serde_yaml with an internal YAML implementation.

Spicepod v1 to v2 Changes​

Spicepod v2 introduces configuration improvements while maintaining backward compatibility with v1. Existing v1 spicepods continue to work — deprecated fields are automatically migrated at load time.

Version support:

Configuration changes:

New v2 fields:

• runtime.ready_state — Controls when the runtime reports ready (on_load default, or on_registration).
• runtime.flight.do_put_rate_limit_enabled — Enable/disable FlightSQL DoPut rate limiting (default: true).
• runtime.query.spill_compression — Compression for query spill files (e.g., lz4_frame).
• runtime.scheduler.partition_management — Configure partition assignment interval, limits, and timeouts for distributed mode.
• runtime.caching.sql_results.stale_while_revalidate_ttl — Serve stale cached results while revalidating in the background.
• runtime.caching.sql_results.encoding — Cache entry compression (e.g., zstd).
• catalog.access: read_write_create — New access mode for catalogs that support DDL operations.

Migration note: When both the deprecated v1 field and its v2 equivalent are set, the v2 field takes priority.

Contributors​

• @avishafir
• @cluster2600
• @Jeadie
• @krinart
• @lukekim
• @peasee
• @phillipleblanc
• @sgrebnov

Breaking Changes​

• Cayenne and Distributed Query exit Beta: Beta warnings have been removed from documentation and code. Both features are now considered GA-ready.
• Models included by default: The separate models build variant has been removed. Local LLM inference is now always included.
• Spicepod version defaults to v2: New spicepods created with spice init now default to version: v2. Existing v1 spicepods remain supported, and v1beta1 is no longer accepted.
• Windows native builds removed: Native Windows builds are no longer provided. Use WSL for local development instead.
• Metric renames: accelerated_refresh metrics renamed to acceleration_refresh for consistency. last_refresh_time gauge renamed to include milliseconds unit.
• Caching config renamed: ResultsCache replaced with SQLResultsCacheConfig in configuration.
• DuckDB parameter rename: partitioned_write_flush_threshold renamed to partitioned_write_flush_threshold_rows.
• v1/search API: The /v1/search API now always returns an array in matches, even for single results.
• x.ai model endpoint: x.ai models now exclusively use the /v1/responses endpoint.
• Error messages: Error messages across S3 Vectors, ScyllaDB, Snowflake, ClickHouse, and other components have been refactored for clarity and consistency.

Cookbook Updates​

New and updated Spice Cookbook recipes:

• Async Queries: Submit long-running queries asynchronously and retrieve results later.
• DuckLake Catalog Connector: Use DuckLake for lakehouse-style data management with ACID transactions and time travel.

The Spice Cookbook includes 88 recipes to help you get started with Spice quickly and easily.

Upgrading​

To upgrade to v2.0.0-rc.1, use one of the following methods:

CLI:

spice upgrade

Homebrew:

brew upgrade spiceai/spiceai/spice

Docker:

Pull the spiceai/spiceai:2.0.0-rc.1 image:

docker pull spiceai/spiceai:2.0.0-rc.1

For available tags, see DockerHub.

Helm:

helm repo update
helm upgrade spiceai spiceai/spiceai --version 2.0.0-rc.1

AWS Marketplace:

Spice is available in the AWS Marketplace.

What's Changed​

Changelog​

• Add TPC-DS integration tests with S3 source and PostgreSQL acceleration by @phillipleblanc in #9006
• fix(tests): fix flaky/slow/failing unit tests by @phillipleblanc in #9009
• fix: Update benchmark snapshots for DF51 upgrade by @app/github-actions in #9008
• fix: add feature gate to rrf TEST_EMBEDDING_MODEL by @phillipleblanc in #9017
• fix: features check by @phillipleblanc in #9014
• fix: Enable Cayenne acceleration snapshots by @lukekim in #9020
• URL table support by @lukekim in #9018
• ScyllaDB key filter by @lukekim in #8997
• fix: Schema mismatch when using column projection with HTTP caching by @phillipleblanc in #9021
• Add more tests for HTTP caching with columns selection by @sgrebnov in #9025
• HTTP cache snapshots: default to time_interval and fix snapshots_creation_policy: on_change by @sgrebnov in #9026
• Fix duplicate snapshot creation on startup by @sgrebnov in #9029
• Add ScyllaDB and SMB to the README table by @krinart in #9034
• Remove waiting for runtime to be ready before creating snapshot by @krinart in #9033
• Fix snapshot on_change policy to skip when no writes occurred by @sgrebnov in #9028
• Release notes for release release/1.11.0-rc.2 by @krinart in #9016
• ci: use arduino/setup-protoc for official protobuf compiler by @phillipleblanc in #9036
• ci: install unzip on aarch64 runner for arduino/setup-protoc by @phillipleblanc in #9038
• fix: don't fail release if upload to minio fails by @phillipleblanc in #9039
• Add missing protoc step to setup-cc action by @krinart in #9041
• fix: Update Search integration test snapshots by @app/github-actions in #9013
• Fix formula_1 and codebase_community in bird-bench by @Jeadie in #9000
• Cayenne S3 Express One Zone improvements by @lukekim in #9015
• Add zlib1g-dev to CI by @lukekim in #9052
• Improve validation and logging for hash indexes by @lukekim in #9047
• Upgrade Vortex with CASE-WHEN by @lukekim in #9051
• x.ai models now exclusively use /v1/responses endpoint by @lukekim in #9400
• Improvements for snapshot schema comparison by @krinart in #9401
• v2.0 breaking changes by @lukekim in #9233
• Create PartitionManagementTask for scheduler to update accelerated table partition assignments by @Jeadie in #9378
• refactor(Cayenne): route all write orchestration through CayenneDataSink by @sgrebnov in #9402
• Refactor benchmark to use QueryExecutor trait by @Jeadie in #9418
• feat: Add spidapter build and release workflow by @peasee in #9427
• Testoperator: add support for api-key when connecting to external spice instance by @sgrebnov in #9421
• Initial implementation of Ducklake catalog & data connectors by @lukekim in #9083
• Require aws_lc_rs since jsonwebtoken upgrade by @Jeadie in #9426
• feat: Add spidapter tool by @peasee in #9425
• Add release notes for 1.11.2 patch release by @sgrebnov in #9430
• feat(spidapter): integrate system-adapter-protocol with SCP provisioning by @phillipleblanc in #9434
• Add DuckLake TPCH E2E workflow and federated Spicepod configuration by @lukekim in #9431
• fix(spidapter): use Flight handshake auth instead of x-api-key header by @phillipleblanc in #9435
• [spidapter] Keep only what sparks joy by @Jeadie in #9439
• Refactor binary operator balancing by @Jeadie in #9424
• feat: Add Iceberg DDL support (CREATE TABLE / DROP TABLE) for default catalog override by @phillipleblanc in #9440
• Fix Flight SQL schema consistency: expand view types and verify field names by @sgrebnov in #9438
• Update spidapter for new system-adapter-protocol by @sgrebnov in #9442
• docs: fix typos and syntax errors in style guide and error handling docs by @cluster2600 in #9445
• Add acceleration refresh ingestion metrics (rows_written, bytes_written) by @phillipleblanc in #9461
• Refactor(Cayenne): Replace CatalogError and string based errors with Snafu errors by @sgrebnov in #9403
• Replace deprecated claude-3-5-haiku-latest with claude-haiku-4-5 by @Jeadie in #9492
• Fix #9481: Preserve schema in results cache for empty query results by @phillipleblanc in #9485
• Fix partition by serializing by @Jeadie in #9474
• query: reconcile execution stream nullability with logical plan schema by @phillipleblanc in #9486
• initial spice-cloud-client crate and spice cloud metrics --app <app-name>. by @Jeadie in #9480
• feat: Return dataset error message in datasets API by @peasee in #9487
• Spicebench by @lukekim in #9447
• build(deps): consolidate dependabot dependency updates by @phillipleblanc in #9504
• fix(cluster): route non-partitioned accelerated tables in distributed mode by @phillipleblanc in #9508
• Enable core scalar UDFs in refresh SQL by @sgrebnov in #9502
• Fix metrics in Spidapter again by @Jeadie in #9497
• fix(cluster): tolerate Completed->status propagation race in distributed query handle by @phillipleblanc in #9510
• feat: Support distributed ingestion in cayenne catalog by @peasee in #9506
• Fix Cayenne duplicate primary keys after DELETE + UPSERT CDC sequences by @krinart in #9494
• fix(cluster): rewrite table scans inside subqueries for distributed execution by @phillipleblanc in #9518
• fix: Set catalog mode to readwritecreate in spidapter by @peasee in #9519
• Upgrade AWS SDK crates & set APN user-agent in AWS SDK credential bridge by @lukekim in #8328
• feat(runtime): add runtime ready_state on_registration semantics by @lukekim in #9522
• fix: Add spidapter post-setup retries by @peasee in #9526
• Make partition discovery more robust and make initialization non-blocking by @sgrebnov in #9499
• Make lint-rust-fix support targeted packages and features by @Jeadie in #9511
• Handle new Cloud SCP API by @Jeadie in #9532
• Refactor and simplify streaming benchmarks by @krinart in #9405
• fix: ensure spidapter only increments attempts on failures by @peasee in #9534
• feat: Support specifying app resources in spidapter by @peasee in #9536
• test(runtime): Spice Cayenne DDL integration test by @lukekim in #9535
• fix: Handle schema evolution mismatch errors during data refresh by @lukekim in #9527
• fix: resolve clippy lint warnings by @phillipleblanc in #9547
• pr-builds --tag <TAG> for build_and_release.yml by @Jeadie in #9507
• Add --output flag to spice login with env/json/keychain modes by @Jeadie in #9541
• Don't use 'PartitionedTableScanRewrite' in async distributed query by @Jeadie in #9548
• feat(spidapter): add local backend mode with single executor by @phillipleblanc in #9531
• support chat template in HF by @Jeadie in #9543
• fix(cayenne): stream PK retention deletes and run OOM regression in CI by @phillipleblanc in #9533
• cayenne: Staged append writes to prevent partial writes and data loss on stream error by @sgrebnov in #9491
• AcceleratedTable::scan use FederatedTable::scan when ClusterRole::Scheduler by @Jeadie in #9550
• Upgrade to delta-kernel-rs v0.18.2 by @lukekim in #9528
• Run cayenne tests as part of PR CI by @sgrebnov in #9554
• Upgrade to DataFusion v52.2.0 by @lukekim in #9419
• Remove Snapshot Compaction + Add snapshot existence check by @krinart in #9523
• Update dependencies by @lukekim in #9566
• fix: Update benchmark snapshots by @app/github-actions in #9565
• fix: Compare Cayenne table configuration on startup by @peasee in #9529
• Make Refresh::refresh_sql more robust to alterations over time. by @Jeadie in #9549
• fix: Update datafusion-table-providers dependency to latest revision by @lukekim in #9574
• Unset AWS_ENDPOINT_URL when empty by @krinart in #9575
• fix: allow BytesProcessedExec repartitioning for unordered input by @lukekim in #9540
• Sanitize DataFusion errors by @lukekim in #9530
• Add conditional logging for partition assignments by @Jeadie in #9577
• use 'properly early exit on SIGTERM' by @Jeadie in #9573
• Update datafusion to 52.2.0 by @phillipleblanc in #9582
• Ensure we query one and only one partition per request by @Jeadie in #9416
• feat: Add support for Spicepod version v2 by @lukekim in #9583
• [SpiceDQ] Improve error messages; Avoid race condition on allocate_initial_partitions. by @Jeadie in #9579
• Update ballista dependencies to latest 52.0.0 revision by @lukekim in #9581
• Fix Databricks spark_connect mode always disabled by @phillipleblanc in #9586
• Support partitioning in Arrow accelerator by @Jeadie in #9571
• Fix spice query CLI response deserialization by @phillipleblanc in #9588
• fix: Update benchmark snapshots by @app/github-actions in #9584
• fix: Share RuntimeEnv across Cayenne read/write/delete paths for targeted list_files_cache invalidation by @sgrebnov in #9589
• feat: Add file:// state_location support for async queries scheduler by @phillipleblanc in #9590
• Update endgame links by @krinart in #9598

Full Changelog: https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai/compare/v1.11.2...v2.0.0-rc.1