.Net: New Feature: Allow DI of `SqliteConnection` to `SqliteVectorStore`

[aaronpowell]

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name: Feature request
about: Suggest an idea for this project

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I'm wanting to integrate the Sqlite Vector Store support and orchestrate it with the Aspire SQLite hosting package. While this works fine and generates a connection string, there's no way in which I can leverage the client integration packages, as I can only provide a connection string to AddSqliteCollection.

I'd like to be able to provide the SqliteConnection via DI, so that I don't have to unpack the connection string, but also leverage what the Aspire integration provides, such as health checks on the connection.

[roji]

@aaronpowell can you provide a bit more context on what accepting a SqliteConnection would unlock? Like how is it blocking you with Aspire that the provider only accepts a connection string?

One reason we'd rather avoid accepting SqliteConnection is that it isn't thread-safe, making the MEVD SqliteColllection also non-thread-safe. This means it would have to be Scoped rather than Singleton, which would be less good for performance, and generallly a bit confusing/problematic (the same type is thread-safe/Singleton if constructed from a connection string, but no thread-safe/Scoped if constructed from a connection).

[aaronpowell]

With the current design, I have to write this code:

var vectorStoreConnectionString = builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("sqlite") ?? throw new InvalidOperationException("Connection string `sqlite` not configured.");

builder.Services.AddSqliteCollection<string, IngestedChunk>("data-chatapp3-chunks", vectorStoreConnectionString);
builder.Services.AddSqliteCollection<string, IngestedDocument>("data-chatapp3-documents", vectorStoreConnectionString);

Whereas if I could inject the SqliteConnection I could simplify it with this:

builder.AddSqliteConnection("sqlite");
builder.Services.AddSqliteCollection<string, IngestedChunk>("data-chatapp3-chunks");
builder.Services.AddSqliteCollection<string, IngestedDocument>("data-chatapp3-documents");

The other thing that is provided by the Aspire integration is it enables a health check so if you want to leverage that in a resilience manner it can be. Obviously though, this can be done manually, so it's ensuring simplification and enabling things by default.

I wasn't aware that SqliteConnection isn't thread safe, I didn't see that in the docs (thankfully I created the integration as scoped in the container!), so without some major change to the underlying SQLite library it's probably a non-starter issue.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 90 days with no activity.

[roji]

Sorry for not answering this sooner @aaronpowell, this slipped through the cracks.

Yeah, ADO.NET DbConnections aren't thread-safe in general, and SqliteConnection in particular... Since we want VectorStoreCollection to generally be thread-safe, that means it can't be configured with a DbConnection.