[MEVD] Filter-only search API (without vector similarity)

Steven Sanderson (@SteveSanderson)

We have seen requests for doing criteria filtering without vector similarity; that's important e.g. for synchronizing data, checking if records already exist in the database before updating them, and similar scenarios.

Once #10156 is done, doing this should be quite easy.

/cc Steven Sanderson (@SteveSanderson)

We should first do a cross-database comparison to validate that most/all databases have this capability (I'd be very surprised if that's not the case).

Beyond that, I'm tentatively proposing the name QueryAsync() for the new API. The verb Query (as opposed to Search, SimilaritySearch...) seems to connect quite well with the idea of traditional, keyword-only SQL filtering (e.g. "SQL queries"). This is incidentally also the naming distinction that Milvus makes (Search vs. Query).

I've done some quick research around the capabilities of the Vector DBs (for relational and NoSQL I assumed it simply has to be supported)

Short summary:

all seem to support the filter-only search
Pinecone is the only one that does not support sorting
Some require Top to be always provided, most use very low default values. So we need to make the top property required.
Qdrant is the only one that does not support Skip in a way that would be useful to us (we can specify offset, but it has to be the Id of the record to start with).

So I am going to start with an API that takes mandatory filter and Top property.

Connector	Non-vector search	OrderBy	Top	Skip	API used	.NET code
Azure AI Search	Yes	Yes	Optional, defaults to 50, max 1k	Optional, max is 100k	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/searchservice/search-documents#query-parameters	azure-sdk-for-net/sdk/search/Azure.Search.Documents/src/Options/SearchOptions.cs at main · Azure/azure-sdk-for-net
Qdrant	Yes	Yes	Default is 10.	Not available. It supports Offset which is Id of the last record from previous batch	Filtering - Qdrant	qdrant-dotnet/src/Qdrant.Client/QdrantClient.cs at c1b3f1527eabbde1df984702d9b36d49c4fad151 · qdrant/qdrant-dotnet
Pinecone	Should work (the vector property is nullable, docs are not clear)	No	Required.	Not available, need to read more results and skip them manually	https://docs.pinecone.io/guides/data/understanding-metadata#metadata-query-language	pinecone-dotnet-client/src/Pinecone/Index/Requests/QueryRequest.cs at main · pinecone-io/pinecone-dotnet-client
Weaviate	Should work (It's not clear if providing a search operator is mandatory (and they all refer to vectors))	Yes	Optional, defaults to 10.	Optional	Object-level queries (Get) \| Weaviate	semantic-kernel/dotnet/src/Connectors/Connectors.Memory.Weaviate/HttpV2/WeaviateVectorSearchRequest.cs at main · microsoft/semantic-kernel
CosmosDbNoSql	Yes	Yes	Optional	Optional		azure-cosmos-dotnet-v3/Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos/src/Query/v3Query/QueryDefinition.cs at master · Azure/azure-cosmos-dotnet-v3

westey (@westey-m)

Thanks for this Adam!

all seem to support the filter-only search

Great, that validates the need to expose this in the abstraction.

Pinecone is the only one that does not support sorting

When you say sorting/ordering, do you mean that databases simply allow picking a metadata property to sort by? Or is there more advanced support with expressions or something? If it's the former, then we'd just have a property selector (just like we do for selecting the vector property).

In any case, if Pinecone is the only one to not support this, it sounds like it definitely makes sense having it on the abstraction. I'm guessing it should be optional? If not specified, do databases just return random/undetermined ordering, or error?

Some require Top to be always provided, most use very low default values. So we need to make the top property required.

Yep, see #10193 for the same thing on the regular search API; whatever we decide to do should be done on both these search types (and also on the hybrid search API) for consistency. I'm happy for you to take over #10193 if you want - the main thing is making sure everyone agrees about the right thing here (/cc westey (@westey-m) Dmytro Struk (@dmytrostruk)).

Qdrant is the only one that does not support Skip in a way that would be useful to us (we can specify offset, but it has to be the Id of the record to start with).

That's an interesting one, and actually connects to general database questions about pagination efficiency; implementing pagination ("skipping") by giving an ID/key is actually typically the more efficient way to do things (see these docs, this post).

I'm curious why they chose to actually expose a Skip property on the API, given that you should already be able to simply do the same thing in the regular filter (i.e. Filter = r => r.Id > something). If there's some advantage in using the special Skip API (and I'm guessing there is, otherwise it wouldn't be there), we could go fancy and identify r.Id > something inside the filter, and extract that out, passing something to the Skip property (this is not quite as trivial as it sounds, e.g. when the comparison is nested in an OR we can't do it).

Maybe open an issue for us to look at this later, and throw for now if Skip is provided?

Update: The Vector property for Pincone QueryAsync is nullable, but only because either a vector or a vector ID must be provided.

There is a search_records API that we could use instead, but it's not exposed by the .NET client. I've created an issue: pinecone-io/pinecone-dotnet-client#43

For now I am using QueryAsync with a fake vector (just a vector full of zeros).

If not specified, do databases just return random/undetermined ordering, or error?

I don't know yet. I am just afraid that if we don't expose OrderBy(propertySelector), but do expose Skip and Top, users might end up getting the same record in multiple batches (as we don't get vector score and the results are not ordered by the score)

I am just afraid that if we don't expose OrderBy(propertySelector), but do expose Skip and Top, users might end up getting the same record in multiple batches (as we don't get vector score and the results are not ordered by the score)

Yep, that is how SQL works as well - you can specify LIMIT/OFFSET without ORDER BY, and get non-deterministic results. FWIW LIMIT can make sense without ORDER BY ("give me any 10 elements") but OFFSET not so much. EF warns for (most) such queries.

I don't think we should worry too much about this... Since almost all databases seem to support OrderBy, it seems obvious we should support that - if the user doesn't set it while using limit/offset, at the end of the day it's their problem...

Shay Rojansky (@roji)

All the connectors except of Pinceone, do support ordering the results. But unlike other connectors, Redis and Qdrant allow to sort only by a single property.

For now, I've implemented a very simple approach where the user might provide a single OrderBy selector and a boolean flag to set the order to be descending.

public sealed class QueryOptions<TRecord>
{
    public Expression<Func<TRecord, object?>>? OrderBy { get; init; }
    public bool SortAscending { get; init; }
}

await fixture.Collection.QueryAsync(new()
{
    Filter = filter,
    Top = top,
    OrderBy = r => r.Int // selecting a single property
}).ToListAsync());

An alternative would be to expose a func expression that takes a IQueryable<TRecord> and returns IOrderedQueryable<TRecord> and allow the users to chain OrderBy[Descending] and ThenBy[Descending] methods:

public sealed class QueryOptions<TRecord>
{
    public Expression<Func<IQueryable<TRecord>, IOrderedQueryable<TRecord>>>? OrderByExpression { get; init; }
}

await fixture.Collection.QueryAsync(new()
{
    Filter = filter,
    Top = top,
    OrderByExpression = input => input.OrderBy(x => x.Int).ThenByDescending(x => x.String)
}).ToListAsync());

Links to docs:

Azure AI Search: can order by up to 32 OrderBy properties
Mongo DB: no limitations, API
Cosmos DB (NoSQL): might require an index for the fields being sorted, syntax
InMemory: no limitations
Pinecone: not supported
PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Sqlite: no limitations
Qdrant: can order by a single property
Redis: can order by a single property
Weaviate: can order by a multiple properties

Shay Rojansky (@roji) let's sync and chat about it

Adam Sitnik (@adamsitnik)

Adam Sitnik (@adamsitnik) great work, thanks - definitely think together about it (westey (@westey-m) you'll probably be interested to).

BTW we also need to finalize the naming (QueryAsync) - IIRC westey (@westey-m) wasn't a fan; maybe let's do a meeting where we do a more holistic naming look; for the embedding generation integration changes, I plan on proposing replacing the existing APIs with SearchEmbeddingAsync (which accepts a raw embedding), vs. SearchAsync which would take a non-embedding. My main objective here is to make sure unsuspecting new users get to SearchAsync by default, and not to one of the more advanced/niche APIs.

On that note, Adam Sitnik (@adamsitnik) can you put together a quick overview of what the non-vector search APIs are called in the different databases? If there's a standard/tendency that could inform our naming decision here and help us decide...

can you put together a quick overview of what the non-vector search APIs are called in the different databases

The names of the APIs used are:

Azure AI Search: SearchAsync
MongoDB: FindAsync
CosmosDB: GetItemQueryIterator
Pinecone: search_records
Qdrant: ScrollAsync
Redis: SearchAsync
Weaviate: search

But most of them can be used for vector search as well (it's just a matter of different input for the same method)

Adam Sitnik (@adamsitnik)

Adam Sitnik (@adamsitnik) one more thought... Do databases - and especially those that support only a single ordering property - generally allow specifying ascending vs. descending? Or is that more a thing that the databases with multiple properties support?

@adamsitnik one more thought... Do databases - and especially those that support only a single ordering property - generally allow specifying ascending vs. descending? Or is that more a thing that the databases with multiple properties support?

They all (except of Pincone which does not support ordering at all) do support specifying ASC/DESC

Fixed by #11112

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[MEVD] Filter-only search API (without vector similarity) #10295

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