---
title: "Create a scalar index on a table"
method: POST
path: "/v1/table/{id}/create_scalar_index"
tags: ["Table", "Index", "Metadata"]
---

# Create a scalar index on a table

`POST /v1/table/{id}/create_scalar_index`

Create a scalar index on a table column for faster filtering operations.
Supports scalar indexes (BTREE, BITMAP, LABEL_LIST, FTS, etc.).
This is an alias for CreateTableIndex specifically for scalar indexes.
Index creation is handled asynchronously.
Use the `ListTableIndices` and `DescribeTableIndexStats` operations to monitor index creation progress.

## Path parameters

- `id` string, required

## Query parameters

- `delimiter` string

## Request body

- CreateTableIndexRequest
  - `id` string[]
  - `column` string, required — Name of the column to create index on
  - `index_type` string, required — Type of index to create (e.g., BTREE, BITMAP, LABEL_LIST, IVF_FLAT, IVF_PQ, IVF_HNSW_SQ, FTS)
  - `name` string, nullable — Optional name for the index. If not provided, a name will be auto-generated.
  - `distance_type` string — Distance metric type for vector indexes (e.g., l2, cosine, dot)
  - `with_position` boolean, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for position tracking
  - `base_tokenizer` string, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for base tokenizer
  - `language` string, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for language
  - `max_token_length` integer, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for maximum token length
  - `lower_case` boolean, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for lowercase conversion
  - `stem` boolean, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for stemming
  - `remove_stop_words` boolean, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for stop word removal
  - `ascii_folding` boolean, nullable — Optional FTS parameter for ASCII folding

## Response `200`

Scalar index created successfully

- CreateTableScalarIndexResponse — Response for create scalar index operation
  - `transaction_id` string — Optional transaction identifier

## 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.
- `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` — 6 breaking, 6 warning, 6 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`
  - …14 more
- **2025-12-11** `6ad4337e3849` — 1 info
  - endpoint added
- **2025-07-22** `ac7519693c52` — 1 breaking
  - api path removed without deprecation
- **2025-07-21** `db7569410aa4` — 2 info
  - api operation id `CreateScalarIndex` removed and replaced with `CreateTableScalarIndex`
  - api tag `Metadata` added
- **2025-07-21** `6790486d1fac` — 10 breaking, 20 warning, 34 info
  - added the new required request property `namespace`
  - request property `index_type` was restricted to a list of enum values
  - the request property `name` became not nullable
  - the request property `name` became required
  - …60 more

[Change history](https://skmtc.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification/changes/v1/table/:id/create_scalar_index/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.dev/lance-format/apis/lance-namespace-specification/revisions/bf2b77f98a25?raw)