---
title: "Declare a table"
method: POST
path: "/v1/table/{id}/declare"
tags: ["Table", "Metadata"]
---

# Declare a table

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

Declare a 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.

## Request body

- DeclareTableRequest — Request for declaring a table.
  - `identity` Identity — Identity information of a request.
    - `api_key` string — API key for authentication. REST NAMESPACE ONLY This is passed via the `x-api-key` header.
    - `auth_token` string — Bearer token for authentication. REST NAMESPACE ONLY This is passed via the `Authorization` header with the Bearer scheme (e.g., `Bearer <token>`).
  - `context` Context — Arbitrary context as key-value pairs. How to use the context is custom to the specific implementation. On a request, it carries caller-provided context to the implementation. On a response, it carries implementation-provided context back to the caller. REST NAMESPACE ONLY Context entries are mapped to and from HTTP headers using the `header.` prefix: - On a request, any entry whose key starts with `header.` is sent as an HTTP request header with the prefix stripped. For example, the entry `{"header.Authorization": "Bearer abc"}` is sent as the request header `Authorization: Bearer abc`. - On a response, every HTTP response header is returned as an entry whose key is the header name prefixed with `header.`. For example, the response header `x-request-id: abc123` is returned as the entry `{"header.x-request-id": "abc123"}`.
  - `id` string[]
  - `location` string — Optional storage location for the table. If not provided, the namespace implementation should determine the table location.
  - `vend_credentials` boolean — Whether to include vended credentials in the response `storage_options`. When true, the implementation should provide vended credentials for accessing storage. When not set, the implementation can decide whether to return vended credentials.
  - `properties` object — Business logic properties stored and managed by the namespace implementation outside Lance context, if supported by the implementation.

## Response `200`

Table properties result when declaring a table

- DeclareTableResponse — Response for declaring a table.
  - `context` Context — Arbitrary context as key-value pairs. How to use the context is custom to the specific implementation. On a request, it carries caller-provided context to the implementation. On a response, it carries implementation-provided context back to the caller. REST NAMESPACE ONLY Context entries are mapped to and from HTTP headers using the `header.` prefix: - On a request, any entry whose key starts with `header.` is sent as an HTTP request header with the prefix stripped. For example, the entry `{"header.Authorization": "Bearer abc"}` is sent as the request header `Authorization: Bearer abc`. - On a response, every HTTP response header is returned as an entry whose key is the header name prefixed with `header.`. For example, the response header `x-request-id: abc123` is returned as the entry `{"header.x-request-id": "abc123"}`.
  - `transaction_id` string — Optional transaction identifier
  - `location` string
  - `storage_options` object — Configuration options to be used to access storage. The available options depend on the type of storage in use. These will be passed directly to Lance to initialize storage access.
  - `properties` object, nullable — If the implementation does not support table properties, it should return null for this field. Otherwise it should return the properties.
  - `managed_versioning` boolean — When true, the caller should use namespace table version operations (CreateTableVersion, BatchCreateTableVersions, DescribeTableVersion, ListTableVersions, BatchDeleteTableVersions) to manage table versions instead of relying on Lance's native version management.

## 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.

---

[API](https://skmtc.net/lancedb/apis/lance-namespace-specification.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.net/lancedb/apis/lance-namespace-specification/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc-service-staging.skmtc.workers.dev/v1/apis/lancedb/lance-namespace-specification/versions/d5b7c114f475/schema)