API Parity

API Parity

Overview

DynamoDbLite implements the IAmazonDynamoDB interface from AWSSDK.DynamoDBv2. This page documents which operations are supported, partial, stubbed, or out of scope, and highlights behavioral differences from real DynamoDB. See the DynamoDB API Reference for the full AWS API specification.

Operation support matrix

Table management

Operation	Status	Notes
CreateTableAsync	Supported	Immediate ACTIVE status
DeleteTableAsync	Supported	Synchronous deletion
DescribeTableAsync	Supported	Exact item count and size
ListTablesAsync	Supported	All overloads
UpdateTableAsync	Partial	GSI create/delete; throughput and billing-mode changes accepted but no-op; other UpdateTable fields silently ignored

Item CRUD

Operation	Status	Notes
PutItemAsync	Supported	ConditionExpression, ReturnValues (ALL_OLD)
GetItemAsync	Supported	ProjectionExpression, ConsistentRead (no-op)
DeleteItemAsync	Supported	ConditionExpression, ReturnValues (ALL_OLD)
UpdateItemAsync	Supported	All UpdateExpression clauses, all ReturnValues modes

Query & Scan

Operation	Status	Notes
QueryAsync	Supported	KeyConditionExpression, FilterExpression, pagination, index queries
ScanAsync	Supported	FilterExpression, pagination, index scans, legacy overloads

Batch operations

Operation	Status	Notes
BatchGetItemAsync	Supported	Multi-table, ProjectionExpression per table
BatchWriteItemAsync	Supported	Mixed put/delete, duplicate detection

Transactions

Operation	Status	Notes
TransactWriteItemsAsync	Supported	All action types, idempotency tokens
TransactGetItemsAsync	Supported	Multi-table, ProjectionExpression

Secondary indexes

Feature	Status	Notes
GSI at table creation	Supported	Up to 5
LSI at table creation	Supported	Up to 5
GSI via UpdateTable	Supported	With immediate backfill
GSI deletion	Supported
Projection types (ALL, KEYS_ONLY, INCLUDE)	Supported
Sparse indexes	Supported
ConsistentRead=true on GSI	Supported	Throws AmazonDynamoDBException, matching DynamoDB's rejection of strongly-consistent reads on GSIs

TTL

Operation	Status	Notes
UpdateTimeToLiveAsync	Supported	Enable/disable; enabling immediately backfills existing items' TTL epoch
DescribeTimeToLiveAsync	Supported

Tags

Operation	Status	Notes
TagResourceAsync	Supported
UntagResourceAsync	Supported
ListTagsOfResourceAsync	Supported

Admin / endpoints

Operation	Status	Notes
DescribeEndpointsAsync	Stubbed	Returns dynamodb.localhost
DescribeLimitsAsync	Stubbed	Returns hardcoded limits (account: 80,000 R/W; table: 40,000 R/W)
DetermineServiceOperationEndpoint	Stubbed	Returns http://dynamodb.localhost
Paginators	Stubbed	Property returns null; iterate manually with LastEvaluatedKey

Export & import

Operation	Status	Notes
ExportTableToPointInTimeAsync	Supported	Local filesystem via S3Bucket field (treated as a directory path); DYNAMODB_JSON only
DescribeExportAsync	Supported
ListExportsAsync	Supported
ImportTableAsync	Supported	Local filesystem via S3BucketSource.S3Bucket field (treated as a directory path); DYNAMODB_JSON only
DescribeImportAsync	Supported
ListImportsAsync	Supported

Out of scope

These operations are meaningless for an in-process embedded emulator and will not be implemented. Every method below throws NotSupportedException.

Backup & restore:

• CreateBackupAsync
• DeleteBackupAsync
• DescribeBackupAsync
• DescribeContinuousBackupsAsync
• ListBackupsAsync
• RestoreTableFromBackupAsync
• RestoreTableToPointInTimeAsync
• UpdateContinuousBackupsAsync

Global tables & replication:

• CreateGlobalTableAsync
• DescribeGlobalTableAsync
• DescribeGlobalTableSettingsAsync
• DescribeTableReplicaAutoScalingAsync
• ListGlobalTablesAsync
• UpdateGlobalTableAsync
• UpdateGlobalTableSettingsAsync
• UpdateTableReplicaAutoScalingAsync

Kinesis streaming:

• DescribeKinesisStreamingDestinationAsync
• DisableKinesisStreamingDestinationAsync
• EnableKinesisStreamingDestinationAsync
• UpdateKinesisStreamingDestinationAsync

PartiQL:

• BatchExecuteStatementAsync
• ExecuteStatementAsync
• ExecuteTransactionAsync

Contributor insights:

• DescribeContributorInsightsAsync
• ListContributorInsightsAsync
• UpdateContributorInsightsAsync

Resource policies:

• DeleteResourcePolicyAsync
• GetResourcePolicyAsync
• PutResourcePolicyAsync

Behavioral differences

Behavior	DynamoDB	DynamoDbLite
Table status transitions	CREATING → ACTIVE → DELETING	Immediately ACTIVE; synchronous deletion
GSI creation	CREATING status, eventual backfill	Synchronous backfill, immediately ACTIVE
Provisioned throughput	Enforced; throttling on exceeded capacity	Stored but not enforced; no throttling
Consumed capacity	Tracked and returned	Not tracked
ConsistentRead	Eventually vs strongly consistent	All reads are strongly consistent (SQLite)
TTL deletion	Items deleted ~48 hours after expiry; may still appear in reads	Items filtered instantly at read time; physically deleted within 30s
TTL enable/disable	Can take up to 1 hour	Immediate
Item count / table size	Updated approximately every 6 hours	Updated on every write (exact)
Table ARN	Region-specific, real account ID	arn:aws:dynamodb:local:000000000000:table/{name}
Export/Import	S3-based	Local filesystem (the S3Bucket field is reused as a directory path)
Export/Import format	DYNAMODB_JSON and ION	DYNAMODB_JSON only
Parallel scan	Supports segments for parallelism	Segments honored but applied post-retrieval — partitions results, does not reduce per-call work; Limit counts pre-segmentation
Idempotency token	Persisted server-side	In-memory cache with 10-minute TTL
UnprocessedKeys/Items	May return unprocessed items under throttling	Always empty (all items processed)
Auto-scaling	Adjusts throughput based on load	Not applicable
Encryption	At-rest and in-transit encryption	Not applicable (local storage)
Point-in-time recovery	Continuous backups	Out of scope
DynamoDB Streams	Change data capture	Out of scope
Global tables	Multi-region replication	Out of scope

Known limitations

• Parallel scan caveats — TotalSegments / Segment partition results post-retrieval. Each segment returns disjoint items, but segmentation does not reduce per-call work, and Limit applies to the pre-segmentation row count.
• Connection strings — must follow Microsoft.Data.Sqlite format
• Paginators — IDynamoDBv2PaginatorFactory returns null; the idiomatic client.Paginators.ScanAsync(...) pattern throws NullReferenceException. Iterate paginated results manually with LastEvaluatedKey.