---
title: "Create an empty table"
method: POST
path: "/v1/table/{id}/create-empty"
tags: ["Table", "Metadata"]
---

# Create an empty table

`POST /v1/table/{id}/create-empty`

Create an empty table with the given name without touching storage.
This is a metadata-only operation that records the table existence and sets up aspects like access control.

For DirectoryNamespace implementation, this creates a `.lance-reserved` file in the table directory
to mark the table's existence without creating actual Lance data files.

## Path parameters

- `id` string, required

## Query parameters

- `delimiter` string

## Request body

- CreateEmptyTableRequest — Request for creating an empty table.
  - `id` string[]
  - `location` string — Optional storage location for the table. If not provided, the namespace implementation should determine the table location.
  - `properties` unknown

## Response `200`

Table properties result when creating an empty table

- CreateEmptyTableResponse — Response for creating an empty table.
  - `transaction_id` string — Optional transaction identifier
  - `location` string
  - `properties` unknown
  - `storage_options` unknown

## Other responses

- `400` — Indicates a bad request error. It could be caused by an unexpected request body format or other forms of request validation failure, such as invalid json. Usually serves application/json content, although in some cases simple text/plain content might be returned by the server's middleware.
- `401` — Unauthorized. The request lacks valid authentication credentials for the operation.
- `403` — Forbidden. Authenticated user does not have the necessary permissions.
- `404` — A server-side problem that means can not find the specified resource.
- `409` — The request conflicts with the current state of the target resource.
- `503` — The service is not ready to handle the request. The client should wait and retry. The service may additionally send a Retry-After header to indicate when to retry.
- `5XX` — A server-side problem that might not be addressable from the client side. Used for server 5xx errors without more specific documentation in individual routes.

## Changes

- **2025-12-20** `5d6099d672d3` — 7 breaking, 7 warning, 7 info
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `400`
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `401`
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `403`
  - the `code` response property's min was decreased from `400.00` to `0.00` for the response status `404`
  - …17 more
- **2025-12-11** `6ad4337e3849` — 1 info
  - added the optional property `transaction_id` to the response with the `200` status
- **2025-08-28** `671d6a4859f5` — 1 info
  - endpoint added

[Change history](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification/changes/v1/table/:id/create-empty/post.md)

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc-service-production.skmtc.workers.dev/v1/apis/lance-format/lance-namespace-specification/revisions/5d6099d672d3/schema)