Agent Framework Oracle vector store

An alpha connector for storing and searching native VECTOR columns in Oracle Database 23ai or newer. OracleCollection implements async batch CRUD and vector search; OracleStore shares a client across collections; OracleSettings resolves connection configuration through Agent Framework.

Installation and setup

pip install agent-framework-oracle --pre

Requires Python 3.10+, Oracle Database 23ai or newer with COMPATIBLE set to 23.4.0 or higher, python-oracledb 2.2.x or 3.x, and permission to create/drop tables in the connected user's schema. The connector uses the driver's async Thin-mode API; it does not initialize the Thick client or provision a database. It does not create or alter schemas, vector indexes, or existing tables.

Set ORACLE_DSN (for example localhost:1521/FREEPDB1), ORACLE_USER, and ORACLE_PASSWORD, or pass dsn, user, and password to either constructor. Credentials are resolved in order: **explicit argument > selected .env file

process environment**. A .env file is read only when env_file_path is specified; env_file_encoding overrides UTF-8. password accepts str or Agent Framework SecretString and is unwrapped only when opening a connection. Missing or empty credentials are errors.

Alternatively, pass a configured oracledb.AsyncConnection or oracledb.AsyncConnectionPool as client for advanced authentication. A supplied client cannot be combined with connection settings and remains caller-owned. A connector-created pool opens on first use and closes on close() or async context exit. A collection obtained from a store borrows its client; closing that collection does not close the store. The store must remain open while its collections are used.

Writes on pooled connections (both connector-owned and caller-supplied pools) are committed on success and rolled back on failure. Writes to a supplied AsyncConnection are left in the caller's transaction; the caller must commit or roll back. Oracle DDL commits independently of the surrounding transaction. Batch upserts on a borrowed connection may leave partial pending work on failure, so roll it back before reuse.

ensure_collection_exists() leaves an existing table unchanged and does not validate its schema; use a matching definition or create a new table. It never migrates data or changes existing indexes.

Usage

import asyncio
from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import Annotated

from agent_framework import Filter, VectorStoreField, vectorstoremodel
from agent_framework_oracle import OracleStore


@vectorstoremodel(collection_name="articles")
@dataclass
class Article:
    id: Annotated[str, VectorStoreField("key")]
    text: Annotated[str, VectorStoreField("data")]
    embedding: Annotated[list[float] | None, VectorStoreField("vector", dimensions=3)] = None


async def main() -> None:
    async with OracleStore() as store:
        collection = store.get_collection(Article)
        await collection.ensure_collection_exists()
        await collection.upsert([Article("one", "Oracle vector search", [1, 0, 0])], generate_vectors=False)
        results = await collection.search(
            vector=[1, 0, 0], filter=Filter("text", "contains_text", "Oracle"), top=3
        )
        async for result in results:
            print(result["record"].text, result["score"])


asyncio.run(main())

Pass generate_vectors=False for precomputed vectors, or configure an embedding_generator for local generation. get() excludes vector columns by default; pass include_vectors=True to restore them. get(keys) preserves requested key order and duplicates, omitting missing keys; filtered retrieval supports top, skip, and order_by. Both get() and search() execute portable filters and paging in Oracle. The runnable sample creates and deletes a unique test table.

Capabilities and limits

• A collection is one table in the current user's schema. Keys are application-provided strings (up to 512 UTF-8 bytes), signed 64-bit integers, or UUIDs; automatically generated keys are not supported.
• Multiple nullable native vector columns are supported. Vector fields may declare float/float32 (Oracle FLOAT32), float64 (FLOAT64), or int8 (INT8); omitted element types use FLOAT32. Dimensions must be 1–65535. Supplied vectors must be dense finite numeric sequences with the declared dimensions. Binary and sparse vectors are not supported.
• Scalar data fields support str (up to 4000 UTF-8 bytes), int (signed 64-bit), float (BINARY_DOUBLE), and bool (stored as NUMBER(1,0)). Oracle converts empty strings to NULL, so this connector rejects empty string values rather than changing their meaning. JSON fields, nested paths, provider annotations, data/full-text/vector indexes, and schema migration are not supported.
• Search uses Oracle VECTOR_DISTANCE with an explicit metric. The default is COSINE distance; cosine_similarity, Euclidean distance, dot product, negative dot product, squared Euclidean distance, and Manhattan distance are also available. Scores are native metric values, not probabilities. For distances a score_threshold is a maximum; for similarities/dot product it is a minimum. The cutoff is applied in SQL before paging. No ANN indexes are created or managed; Oracle may use an existing index if the table already has one. There is no exact/approximate toggle, server-side embedding generation, or keyword-hybrid search. Index-selected approximate searches may return fewer than the requested number of results.
• Portable filters support scalar equality (including NULL and boolean distinctions), in/not_in, numeric ranges, is_null, is_not_null, exists, literal text contains_text/starts_with/ends_with, and AND/OR/NOT. Finite Decimal values are supported for exact numeric equality and membership; malformed UUID filter values compare as unequal. Collection membership and nested filters are rejected. Ordered filters on integer fields reject non-integral float operands; ordered Decimal operands are not supported. String comparison follows the configured Oracle collation. Input values are bound; identifiers are checked and quoted as individual names.

Opt-in database tests

The unit tests require no Oracle server. To run the live integration test, provide all three ORACLE_TEST_DSN, ORACLE_TEST_USER, and ORACLE_TEST_PASSWORD for an explicitly designated disposable Oracle 23ai+ schema where the user can create and drop tables:

cd python
uv run --package agent-framework-oracle pytest packages/oracle/tests \
  -m integration

Without those variables, the integration test skips; it never falls back to ordinary application credentials. The fixture creates a unique table and deletes only that table.

Documentation

• Oracle Database AI Vector Search requirements
• python-oracledb 2.2 vector types
• Microsoft Agent Framework