v0.2.0: pgContext - Composable Retrieval for PostgreSQL

pgContext 0.2.0 expands PostgreSQL-native vector retrieval while keeping ordinary PostgreSQL tables authoritative. Transactions, MVCC, ACL/RLS, backups, and recovery continue to be owned by PostgreSQL; HNSW indexes remain rebuildable acceleration artifacts.

Highlights

• Exact dense-vector search with L2, inner-product, cosine, and L1 metrics
• Page-native HNSW indexes with inserts, VACUUM, REINDEX, restart, and WAL-aware lifecycle support
• Metadata-filtered exact and approximate search
• Collections, scrolling, counts, facets, grouping, recommendation, and discovery
• Hybrid dense and PostgreSQL full-text retrieval
• Named dense and sparse retrieval paths
• Experimental halfvec, sparsevec, and bitvec types and HNSW operator classes
• Quantization, late-interaction, and composite-query building blocks
• Expanded diagnostics, recall checks, lifecycle status, and bounded telemetry
• PostgreSQL 17 and 18 images for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64

PostgreSQL 17 remains the primary performance and deep-lifecycle qualification target.

Upgrading from 0.1.0

A standalone 0.1.0 → 0.2.0 extension upgrade is supported:

ALTER EXTENSION pgcontext UPDATE TO '0.2.0';

The upgrade requires a PostgreSQL superuser. pgContext-owned vector types now live in the pgcontext schema, so applications should use qualified names such as pgcontext.vector(1536) or add pgcontext to search_path.

Because the HNSW on-disk format remains experimental, rebuild existing HNSW indexes after upgrading.

For pgvector coexistence, use the optional pgcontext_pgvector companion. Its certified profile is PostgreSQL 17 with pgvector 0.8.x.

Current boundaries

This release is intended for prototypes, evaluation, and controlled pilots.

• HNSW, filtered ANN, non-dense vectors, quantized serving, and late-interaction paths remain experimental.
• IVFFlat is not implemented.
• pgContext is not a drop-in replacement for pgvector.
• Broad production and long-duration workload certification remains ongoing.

See the full release notes, installation guide, and known issues for details.