Why opensearchpy doesn't support knn since knn was added for a long time，but in ES8.x python sdk supports it

pyyuhao · February 26, 2025, 10:48am

Versions (relevant - OpenSearch/Dashboard/Server OS/Browser):
OpenSearch 2.18
opensearchpy==2.7.1

Describe the issue:
Why opensearchpy doesn’t support knn since knn was added for a long time，but in ES8.x python sdk supports it( Search Class in elasticsearch_dsl/search.py added knn method)
Will the python sdk supported it in the future or the opensearchpy will no longer be supported.

Configuration:

github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-py

guides/plugins/knn.md

main

- [k-NN Plugin](#k-nn-plugin)
  - [Basic Approximate k-NN](#basic-approximate-k-nn)
    - [Create an Index](#create-an-index)
    - [Index Vectors](#index-vectors)
    - [Search for Nearest Neighbors](#search-for-nearest-neighbors)
  - [Approximate k-NN with a Boolean Filter](#approximate-k-nn-with-a-boolean_filter)
  - [Approximate k-NN with an Efficient Filter](#approximate-k-nn-with-an-efficient-filter)

# k-NN Plugin

Short for k-nearest neighbors, the k-NN plugin enables users to search for the k-nearest neighbors to a query point across an index of vectors. See [documentation](https://opensearch.org/docs/latest/search-plugins/knn/index/) for more information.

## Basic Approximate k-NN

In the following example we create a 5-dimensional k-NN index with random data. You can find a synchronous version of this working sample in [samples/knn/knn_basics.py](../../samples/knn/knn_basics.py) and an asynchronous one in [samples/knn/knn_async_basics.py](../../samples/knn/knn_async_basics.py).

```bash
$ poetry run python knn/knn_basics.py

Searching for [0.61, 0.05, 0.16, 0.75, 0.49] ...

This file has been truncated. show original

in this url, no new api or method is added to support knn search, it is not as convenient as ES 8.x python sdk which implements knn method

Relevant Logs or Screenshots:

nateynate · February 26, 2025, 5:03pm

This would be a perfect thing to file a feature request for in github. It may not be too tough of a feature to add if it’s just a matter of query DSL, which is basically json. I’m not intimate with the python libraries, but it might be just as easy to just specify your own query payload if generic post requests can be sent.

ElasticSearch and OpenSearch have been diverged for quite some time. There are likely many features which don’t have complete parity.

pyyuhao · February 28, 2025, 2:21am

Thanks for your replay and advice
We are focusing on ES/OpenSearch service for our customers，currently，vector-based storage and search is cusotomers’ need, so we hope that the usage of ES/Opensearch‘s
python sdk will be the same.
If the opensearchpy team has no plan to implement it, maybe we should implement the methods for our customers

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Why opensearchpy doesn't support knn since knn was added for a long time，but in ES8.x python sdk supports it

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