HelixDB Docs

Guide

Secondary indexes narrow node or edge sources by property. Index creation is asynchronous and includes existing data through a durable backfill.

Index families

Family	Use
Equality	Exact property matches
Unique equality	Exact matches plus uniqueness enforcement
Range ascending	Ordered comparisons and ascending scans
Range descending	Descending-first ordered scans

Definitions include the entity kind, label, property, and range direction where applicable.

Create an equality index

write_batch()
    .var_as(
        "index",
        g().create_index_if_not_exists(IndexSpec::node_equality("User", "status")),
    )
    .returning(["index"]);

writeBatch()
  .varAs(
    "index",
    g().createIndexIfNotExists(IndexSpec.nodeEquality("User", "status")),
  )
  .returning(["index"]);

helix.WriteQuery("create_user_status_index").
	VarAs(
		"index",
		helix.G().CreateIndexIfNotExists(
			helix.NodeEqualityIndex("User", "status"),
		),
	).
	Returning("index")

(
    write_batch()
    .var_as(
        "index",
        g().create_index_if_not_exists(
            IndexSpec.node_equality("User", "status")
        ),
    )
    .returning(["index"])
)

{
  "request_type": "write",
  "query_name": "create_user_status_index",
  "query": {
    "write": {
      "entries": [{
        "query": {
          "name": "index",
          "root": {
            "create_index": {
              "spec": {
                "node_equality": {
                  "label": "User",
                  "property": "status",
                  "unique": false
                }
              },
              "if_not_exists": true
            }
          }
        }
      }],
      "returns": ["index"]
    }
  }
}

The returned DDL receipt identifies the durable operation. Poll it until the index is active before depending on indexed performance.

Query indexed data

Use nWhere(SourcePredicate.eq("status", "active")) (or the language-equivalent snake_case builder) for index push-down, then project the required fields. A general .where(...) remains useful after traversal but may filter a larger intermediate stream.

Unique indexes

A unique equality backfill becomes blocked if existing data contains duplicates. Fix the source data, then retry the same operation instead of creating a new definition.

Next steps

Troubleshoot index operations

Resolve blocked builds and lifecycle errors.

Filtering

Match predicates to source and post-traversal filters.

⌘I

Start Here

Core Concepts

Query Guides

Secondary indexes

Index families

Create an equality index

Query indexed data

Unique indexes

Next steps

Troubleshoot index operations

Filtering

​Index families

​Create an equality index

​Query indexed data

​Unique indexes

​Next steps

Troubleshoot index operations

Filtering

Index families

Create an equality index

Query indexed data

Unique indexes

Next steps