PGVector integration

An implementation of LangChain vectorstore abstraction using postgres as the backend and utilizing the pgvector extension.

The code lives in an integration package called: langchain-postgres.

Status

This code has been ported over from langchain-community into a dedicated package called langchain-postgres. The following changes have been made:

langchain-postgres works only with psycopg3. Please update your connnecion strings from postgresql+psycopg2://... to postgresql+psycopg://langchain:langchain@... (yes, it’s the driver name is psycopg not psycopg3, but it’ll use psycopg3.
The schema of the embedding store and collection have been changed to make add_documents work correctly with user specified ids.
One has to pass an explicit connection object now.

Currently, there is no mechanism that supports easy data migration on schema changes. Any schema changes in the vectorstore will require the user to recreate the tables and re-add the documents. If this is a concern, please use a different vectorstore. If not, this implementation should be fine for your use case.

Setup

First download the partner package:

pip install -qU langchain-postgres

You can run the following command to spin up a postgres container with the pgvector extension:

%docker run --name pgvector-container -e POSTGRES_USER=langchain -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=langchain -e POSTGRES_DB=langchain -p 6024:5432 -d pgvector/pgvector:pg16

Use Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server is a relational database service based on the open-source Postgres database engine. It is a fully managed database-as-a-service that can handle mission-critical workloads with predictable performance, security, high availability, and dynamic scalability. To use PGVector with Azure Database for PostgreSQL, set up a server and enable the pgvector extension. Use the connection string from your Azure portal when instantiating the vector store.

Credentials

There are no credentials needed to run this notebook, just make sure you downloaded the langchain-postgres package and correctly started the postgres container. If you want to get best in-class automated tracing of your model calls you can also set your LangSmith API key by uncommenting below:

os.environ["LANGSMITH_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter your LangSmith API key: ")
os.environ["LANGSMITH_TRACING"] = "true"

Instantiation

pip install -U "langchain-openai"

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for OpenAI: ")

from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings

embeddings = OpenAIEmbeddings(model="text-embedding-3-large")

pip install -U "langchain-openai"

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for Azure: ")

from langchain_openai import AzureOpenAIEmbeddings

embeddings = AzureOpenAIEmbeddings(
    azure_endpoint=os.environ["AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT"],
    azure_deployment=os.environ["AZURE_OPENAI_DEPLOYMENT_NAME"],
    openai_api_version=os.environ["AZURE_OPENAI_API_VERSION"],
)

pip install -qU langchain-google-genai

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("GOOGLE_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["GOOGLE_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for Google Gemini: ")

from langchain_google_genai import GoogleGenerativeAIEmbeddings

embeddings = GoogleGenerativeAIEmbeddings(model="models/gemini-embedding-001")

pip install -qU langchain-google-vertexai

from langchain_google_vertexai import VertexAIEmbeddings

embeddings = VertexAIEmbeddings(model="text-embedding-005")

pip install -qU langchain-aws

from langchain_aws import BedrockEmbeddings

embeddings = BedrockEmbeddings(model_id="amazon.titan-embed-text-v2:0")

pip install -qU langchain-huggingface

from langchain_huggingface import HuggingFaceEmbeddings

embeddings = HuggingFaceEmbeddings(
    model_name="sentence-transformers/all-mpnet-base-v2",
    encode_kwargs={"normalize_embeddings": True},
)

pip install -qU langchain-ollama

from langchain_ollama import OllamaEmbeddings

embeddings = OllamaEmbeddings(model="llama3")

pip install -qU langchain-cohere

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("COHERE_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["COHERE_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for Cohere: ")

from langchain_cohere import CohereEmbeddings

embeddings = CohereEmbeddings(model="embed-english-v3.0")

pip install -qU langchain-mistralai

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("MISTRALAI_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["MISTRALAI_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for MistralAI: ")

from langchain_mistralai import MistralAIEmbeddings

embeddings = MistralAIEmbeddings(model="mistral-embed")

pip install -qU langchain-nomic

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("NOMIC_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["NOMIC_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for Nomic: ")

from langchain_nomic import NomicEmbeddings

embeddings = NomicEmbeddings(model="nomic-embed-text-v1.5")

pip install -qU langchain-nvidia-ai-endpoints

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("NVIDIA_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["NVIDIA_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for NVIDIA: ")

from langchain_nvidia_ai_endpoints import NVIDIAEmbeddings

embeddings = NVIDIAEmbeddings(model="NV-Embed-QA")

pip install -qU langchain-voyageai

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("VOYAGE_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["VOYAGE_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for Voyage AI: ")

from langchain_voyageai import VoyageAIEmbeddings

embeddings = VoyageAIEmbeddings(model="voyage-3")

pip install -qU langchain-ibm

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("WATSONX_APIKEY"):
    os.environ["WATSONX_APIKEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for IBM watsonx: ")

from langchain_ibm import WatsonxEmbeddings

embeddings = WatsonxEmbeddings(
    model_id="ibm/slate-125m-english-rtrvr",
    url="https://us-south.ml.cloud.ibm.com",
    project_id="<WATSONX PROJECT_ID>",
)

pip install -qU langchain-core

from langchain_core.embeddings import DeterministicFakeEmbedding

embeddings = DeterministicFakeEmbedding(size=4096)

pip install -qU langchain-isaacus

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("ISAACUS_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["ISAACUS_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter API key for Isaacus: ")

from langchain_isaacus import IsaacusEmbeddings

embeddings = IsaacusEmbeddings(model="kanon-2-embedder")

# | output: false
# | echo: false
from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings

embeddings = OpenAIEmbeddings(model="text-embedding-3-large")

from langchain_postgres import PGVector

# See docker command above to launch a postgres instance with pgvector enabled.
connection = "postgresql+psycopg://langchain:langchain@localhost:6024/langchain"  # Uses psycopg3!
collection_name = "my_docs"

vector_store = PGVector(
    embeddings=embeddings,
    collection_name=collection_name,
    connection=connection,
    use_jsonb=True,
)

Manage vector store

Add items to vector store

Note that adding documents by ID will over-write any existing documents that match that ID.

from langchain_core.documents import Document

docs = [
    Document(
        page_content="there are cats in the pond",
        metadata={"id": 1, "location": "pond", "topic": "animals"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="ducks are also found in the pond",
        metadata={"id": 2, "location": "pond", "topic": "animals"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="fresh apples are available at the market",
        metadata={"id": 3, "location": "market", "topic": "food"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="the market also sells fresh oranges",
        metadata={"id": 4, "location": "market", "topic": "food"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="the new art exhibit is fascinating",
        metadata={"id": 5, "location": "museum", "topic": "art"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="a sculpture exhibit is also at the museum",
        metadata={"id": 6, "location": "museum", "topic": "art"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="a new coffee shop opened on Main Street",
        metadata={"id": 7, "location": "Main Street", "topic": "food"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="the book club meets at the library",
        metadata={"id": 8, "location": "library", "topic": "reading"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="the library hosts a weekly story time for kids",
        metadata={"id": 9, "location": "library", "topic": "reading"},
    ),
    Document(
        page_content="a cooking class for beginners is offered at the community center",
        metadata={"id": 10, "location": "community center", "topic": "classes"},
    ),
]

vector_store.add_documents(docs, ids=[doc.metadata["id"] for doc in docs])

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Delete items from vector store

vector_store.delete(ids=["3"])

Query vector store

Once your vector store has been created and the relevant documents have been added you will most likely wish to query it during the running of your chain or agent.

Filtering support

The vectorstore supports a set of filters that can be applied against the metadata fields of the documents.

Operator	Meaning/Category
$eq	Equality (==)
$ne	Inequality (!=)
$lt	Less than (<)
$lte	Less than or equal (<=)
$gt	Greater than (>)
$gte	Greater than or equal (>=)
$in	Special Cased (in)
$nin	Special Cased (not in)
$between	Special Cased (between)
$like	Text (like)
$ilike	Text (case-insensitive like)
$and	Logical (and)
$or	Logical (or)

Query directly

Performing a simple similarity search can be done as follows:

results = vector_store.similarity_search(
    "kitty", k=10, filter={"id": {"$in": [1, 5, 2, 9]}}
)
for doc in results:
    print(f"* {doc.page_content} [{doc.metadata}]")

* there are cats in the pond [{'id': 1, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}]
* the library hosts a weekly story time for kids [{'id': 9, 'topic': 'reading', 'location': 'library'}]
* ducks are also found in the pond [{'id': 2, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}]
* the new art exhibit is fascinating [{'id': 5, 'topic': 'art', 'location': 'museum'}]

If you provide a dict with multiple fields, but no operators, the top level will be interpreted as a logical AND filter

vector_store.similarity_search(
    "ducks",
    k=10,
    filter={"id": {"$in": [1, 5, 2, 9]}, "location": {"$in": ["pond", "market"]}},
)

[Document(metadata={'id': 1, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}, page_content='there are cats in the pond'),
 Document(metadata={'id': 2, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}, page_content='ducks are also found in the pond')]

vector_store.similarity_search(
    "ducks",
    k=10,
    filter={
        "$and": [
            {"id": {"$in": [1, 5, 2, 9]}},
            {"location": {"$in": ["pond", "market"]}},
        ]
    },
)

[Document(metadata={'id': 1, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}, page_content='there are cats in the pond'),
 Document(metadata={'id': 2, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}, page_content='ducks are also found in the pond')]

If you want to execute a similarity search and receive the corresponding scores you can run:

results = vector_store.similarity_search_with_score(query="cats", k=1)
for doc, score in results:
    print(f"* [SIM={score:3f}] {doc.page_content} [{doc.metadata}]")

* [SIM=0.763449] there are cats in the pond [{'id': 1, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}]

For a full list of the different searches you can execute on a PGVector vector store, see the PGVector API reference.

Query by turning into retriever

You can also transform the vector store into a retriever for easier usage in your chains.

retriever = vector_store.as_retriever(search_type="mmr", search_kwargs={"k": 1})
retriever.invoke("kitty")

[Document(metadata={'id': 1, 'topic': 'animals', 'location': 'pond'}, page_content='there are cats in the pond')]

Usage for retrieval-augmented generation

For guides on how to use this vector store for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), see the following sections:

API reference

For detailed documentation of all PGVector VectorStore features and configurations head to the PGVector API reference.

Connect these docs to your agent of choice via MCP for real-time answers.

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Popular Providers

Integrations by component

Status

Setup

Use Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Credentials

Instantiation

Manage vector store

Add items to vector store

Delete items from vector store

Query vector store

Filtering support

Query directly

Query by turning into retriever

Usage for retrieval-augmented generation

API reference

​Status

​Setup

​Use Azure Database for PostgreSQL

​Credentials

​Instantiation

​Manage vector store

​Add items to vector store

​Delete items from vector store

​Query vector store

​Filtering support

​Query directly

​Query by turning into retriever

​Usage for retrieval-augmented generation

​API reference

Status

Setup

Use Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Credentials

Instantiation

Manage vector store

Add items to vector store

Delete items from vector store

Query vector store

Filtering support

Query directly

Query by turning into retriever

Usage for retrieval-augmented generation

API reference