dasein-ai 0.4.0

Python SDK for the Dasein managed vector index service

Dasein

Python SDK for the Dasein managed vector index service.

Low-latency vector search with hybrid retrieval. Send raw text and get back ranked results — Dasein handles embedding, indexing, and serving.

See our VectorDBBench results for latency and recall benchmarks.

Install

pip install dasein-ai  # not "dasein" — the package name is dasein-ai

Quick Start

from dasein import Client

client = Client(api_key="dsk_...")  # get a free key at https://api.daseinai.ai/auth/github

# Create a hybrid index (semantic + keyword search)
index = client.create_index("my-docs", index_type="hybrid", model="bge-large-en-v1.5")

# Upsert documents — metadata values can be strings, ints, or floats
index.upsert([
    {"id": "doc1", "text": "SpaceX launched Starship on its 5th test flight",
     "metadata": {"source": "reuters", "category": "space", "year": 2025, "priority": 1}},
    {"id": "doc2", "text": "GPT-5 achieves superhuman reasoning on ARC-AGI",
     "metadata": {"source": "arxiv", "category": "ai", "year": 2025, "priority": 2}},
    {"id": "doc3", "text": "Fed holds rates steady amid cooling inflation",
     "metadata": {"source": "bloomberg", "category": "finance", "year": 2025, "priority": 3}},
    {"id": "doc4", "text": "Python 3.13 ships with a JIT compiler",
     "metadata": {"source": "pep", "category": "code", "year": 2024, "priority": 1}},
])

# Hybrid search — semantic similarity + BM25 keyword matching
results = index.query("what is machine learning?", top_k=5, mode="hybrid")

# Filter by metadata — all operators are true pre-filters (no recall penalty)
results = index.query("recent breakthroughs", top_k=5, filter={"year": {"$gte": 2025}}, include_metadata=True)
results = index.query("top stories", top_k=5, filter={"source": {"$in": ["reuters", "bloomberg"]}, "priority": 1}, include_metadata=True)
results = index.query("tech news", top_k=5, filter={"$or": [{"category": "ai"}, {"category": "code"}]}, include_metadata=True)

for r in results:
    print(f"{r.id}: {r.score:.4f} — {r.metadata}")

Choosing an Index Type

You choose the index type at creation time. This determines what search modes are available.

index_type	What it builds	Query modes available
"hybrid"	Dense vectors + BM25 inverted index	mode="hybrid" and mode="dense"
"dense"	Dense vectors only	mode="dense" only

Use "hybrid" unless you have a reason not to. Hybrid indexes support both dense and hybrid queries — you choose per query. Dense indexes are smaller in RAM but cannot use keyword search.

# Hybrid index — supports both query modes
index = client.create_index("my-docs", index_type="hybrid", model="bge-large-en-v1.5")

# Dense-only index — only supports mode="dense"
index = client.create_index("my-docs", index_type="dense", model="bge-large-en-v1.5")

Hybrid Search

Hybrid indexes support per-query toggling between dense-only and hybrid retrieval — no reindexing, no separate BM25 pipeline.

# Dense: pure semantic similarity
results = index.query("financial derivatives risk models", top_k=10, mode="dense")

# Hybrid: semantic + BM25 keyword matching, fused and re-ranked
results = index.query("AAPL earnings Q3 2025", top_k=10, mode="hybrid")

# Exact keyword matching — only docs that contain all your terms
results = index.query("AAPL earnings Q3 2025", top_k=10, mode="hybrid", exact=True)

# Phrase matching — only docs containing "machine learning" as an exact phrase
results = index.query("machine learning", top_k=10, mode="hybrid", phrase=True)

# Fuzzy matching — handles typos (edit distance 1)
results = index.query("machin lerning", top_k=10, mode="hybrid", fuzzy=True)

# Tune the dense vs BM25 balance (0.0 = all dense, 1.0 = all BM25, default 0.5)
results = index.query("AAPL earnings", top_k=10, mode="hybrid", alpha=0.7)  # lean keyword-heavy

Hybrid mode is strongest on queries with specific keywords, entity names, or codes where pure semantic search loses signal. Dense mode is better for abstract, conceptual queries. You choose per query. The keyword features (exact, phrase, fuzzy) refine hybrid results — use them when you need precise keyword control. The alpha parameter lets you tune the balance between dense and BM25 ranking in the fusion step.

Metadata

Attach key-value metadata to documents for filtering at query time. Values can be strings, integers, or floats.

index.upsert([
    {
        "id": "doc1",
        "text": "SpaceX launched Starship",
        "metadata": {
            "source": "reuters",
            "category": "space",
            "year": 2025,
            "priority": 1,
            "rating": 9.2,
        },
    },
])

# Simple equality
results = index.query("rocket launch", top_k=10, filter={"source": "reuters"})
results = index.query("rocket launch", top_k=10, filter={"category": "space", "year": 2025})

Filtering

Filters are true pre-filters — candidates that don't match are never touched. No recall penalty.

# Equality (default — bare values are $eq)
filter={"genre": "sci-fi"}
filter={"genre": {"$eq": "sci-fi"}}  # equivalent explicit form

# Not equal
filter={"status": {"$ne": "archived"}}

# In set
filter={"category": {"$in": ["ai", "finance", "health"]}}

# Not in set
filter={"source": {"$nin": ["spam", "test"]}}

# Exists / not exists
filter={"author": {"$exists": True}}

# Numeric range
filter={"year": {"$gte": 2020, "$lte": 2025}}
filter={"rating": {"$gt": 7.5}}

# OR across keys
filter={"$or": [{"category": "ai"}, {"priority": 1}]}

# Combine (AND by default)
filter={"source": "reuters", "year": {"$gte": 2024}, "category": {"$in": ["tech", "science"]}}

All filter operators work with both dense and hybrid queries. Pass include_metadata=True to return metadata with results.

Get an API Key

Web: Sign up with GitHub at api.daseinai.ai/auth/github — no credit card required. You'll get an API key instantly.

CLI / Agents:

import httpx, time

resp = httpx.post("https://api.daseinai.ai/auth/device/start").json()
print(f"Go to {resp['verification_uri']} and enter code: {resp['user_code']}")

while True:
    time.sleep(resp.get("interval", 5))
    poll = httpx.post(
        "https://api.daseinai.ai/auth/device/poll",
        json={"device_code": resp["device_code"]},
    ).json()
    if poll.get("api_key"):
        print(f"API key: {poll['api_key']}")
        break

Features

Managed embedding — Pass raw text, we embed with open-source models (BGE, Nomic, E5, GTE). No embedding infrastructure to manage.

Bring your own vectors — Already have embeddings? Pass them directly with any dimension.

Hybrid search — Switch between dense and hybrid retrieval per query. No reindexing, no separate BM25 infrastructure.

Metadata filtering — Attach metadata to documents and filter at query time with operators like $in, $ne, $gte, $lte, and $or. True pre-filters with no recall penalty.

Automatic retries — The SDK retries with exponential backoff:

Error	Read / query	Upsert	Build / delete
429 (rate limit)	Retried (up to max_retries)	Retried	Retried
503 (transient)	Retried	Retried (upserts are idempotent by doc ID)	Not retried
504 (gateway timeout)	Retried	Retried	Not retried
Connection error	Retried	Retried	Not retried

Embedding Models

Model	Dimensions	Matryoshka dims	Notes
bge-large-en-v1.5	1024	512, 256, 128, 64	Strong general-purpose English model
nomic-embed-text-v1.5	768	512, 384, 256, 128, 64	Good balance of speed and quality
e5-large-v2	1024	—	Microsoft's E5 family (no MRL support)
gte-large-en-v1.5	1024	512, 256, 128, 64	Alibaba's GTE family

Or skip the model parameter and pass your own vectors of any dimension.

Matryoshka Dimension Truncation

Models trained with Matryoshka Representation Learning (MRL) can be truncated to lower dimensions with minimal recall loss, cutting RAM and storage proportionally. Pass dim at index creation:

index = client.create_index("my-docs", index_type="hybrid", model="bge-large-en-v1.5", dim=256)

Embeddings are generated at full dimension and truncated + L2-renormalized before indexing. Queries are truncated the same way automatically. The first build for a truncated dimension uses on-the-fly PQ training (slightly slower) since pretrained codebooks are only available for native dimensions.

API Reference

Client

from dasein import Client

client = Client(
    api_key="dsk_...",       # required
    base_url=None,           # override API URL (default: Dasein Cloud)
    timeout=30.0,            # request timeout in seconds
    max_retries=3,           # retries on 429/503
)

Create Index

index = client.create_index(
    name="my-index",
    index_type="hybrid",             # REQUIRED CHOICE: "dense" or "hybrid"
    model="bge-large-en-v1.5",      # None for bring-your-own-vectors
    dim=None,                        # truncate to lower dim for MRL models (e.g., 256)
)

index_type determines what search capabilities the index has:

• "hybrid" — builds both a dense vector index and a BM25 inverted index. Supports mode="dense" and mode="hybrid" queries.
• "dense" — builds a dense vector index only. Supports mode="dense" queries only.

List Indexes

indexes = client.list_indexes()
for idx in indexes:
    print(idx["index_id"], idx["name"], idx["status"], idx["vector_count"])

Get Existing Index

index = client.get_index("index_id")

Delete Index

client.delete_index("index_id")

Upsert Documents

index.upsert([
    {"id": "doc1", "text": "Hello world", "metadata": {"type": "greeting"}},
    {"id": "doc2", "text": "Goodbye world", "metadata": {"type": "farewell"}},
])

Each document can have:

• id (required) — unique document ID (string or int)
• text — raw text (embedded automatically if the index has a model)
• vector — pre-computed embedding (list of floats)
• metadata — dict[str, str | int | float] for filtering

Max 5,000 documents per call for model-backed indexes (10,000 for bring-your-own-vectors). The SDK automatically batches larger lists.

You can also use the typed UpsertItem class instead of raw dicts:

from dasein import UpsertItem

index.upsert([
    UpsertItem(id="doc1", text="Hello world", metadata={"type": "greeting"}),
    UpsertItem(id="doc2", vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...]),
])

Query

results = index.query(
    text="search query",         # or vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...]
    top_k=10,
    mode="hybrid",               # "dense" or "hybrid" (hybrid requires index_type="hybrid")
    filter={"key": "value"},     # optional metadata filter (supports operators — see Filtering)
    exact=False,                 # exact keyword matching (hybrid only)
    phrase=False,                # exact phrase matching (hybrid only)
    fuzzy=False,                 # typo-tolerant matching (hybrid only)
    alpha=0.5,                   # dense vs BM25 balance (0=dense, 1=BM25)
    include_text=False,          # return stored text (off by default)
    include_metadata=False,      # return stored metadata (off by default)
)

What you get back depends on your settings:

Setting	Returns	I/O cost
Default	id, score	Zero — pure RAM, no SSD reads
include_metadata=True	+ metadata	Small SSD read per result (page-cached for hot indexes)
include_text=True	+ text	Larger SSD read per result

# Default — IDs and scores only, pure RAM, maximum QPS
results = index.query("quarterly earnings", top_k=10)
for r in results:
    print(r.id, r.score)

# Include metadata
results = index.query("quarterly earnings", top_k=10, include_metadata=True)
for r in results:
    print(r.id, r.score, r.metadata)

# Full hydration — metadata + original text
results = index.query("quarterly earnings", top_k=10, include_text=True, include_metadata=True)
for r in results:
    print(r.id, r.score, r.text, r.metadata)

Both text and metadata are stored on SSD and only fetched when you opt in. The default query path is entirely RAM-resident — no disk I/O.

Delete Documents

index.delete(["doc1", "doc2"])

Upsert and Wait

result = index.upsert_and_wait(documents, timeout=120.0)

Upserts documents and polls until the index becomes queryable. Useful for scripts where you want to upsert and immediately query.

Build (BYOV only)

index.build()

Only needed for bring-your-own-vectors with unrecognized models. Known-model indexes build automatically after the first upsert.

Compact

index.compact()

Triggers a compaction rebuild that removes deleted document tombstones from the graph. Run this after large batch deletions to reclaim performance.

Index Status

info = index.status()
print(info.status)        # created, building, built, active, etc.
print(info.vector_count)

Exceptions

from dasein.exceptions import (
    DaseinError,             # base — catch-all for any Dasein error, including plain 403 Forbidden
    DaseinAuthError,         # 401, or 403 mentioning credentials / API key / revoked
    DaseinQuotaError,        # 403 — billing/plan/trial/subscription/embed limit
    DaseinNotFoundError,     # 404 — index doesn't exist
    DaseinRateLimitError,    # 429 — transient rate limit exceeded (has retry_after)
    DaseinUnavailableError,  # 503/504 — service temporarily unavailable (has retry_after)
    DaseinBuildError,        # build failed
)

DaseinAuthError is raised only for credential issues (bad API key, revoked key, authentication failure). DaseinQuotaError covers trial limits, plan vector caps, expired/past-due subscriptions, and embed token quotas (including 429s that indicate a non-transient monthly embed cap). DaseinRateLimitError is raised for transient per-second rate limits that the SDK retries automatically. A generic 403 (e.g., accessing a resource you don't own) raises DaseinError — catch it separately if you need to distinguish resource authorization from credential errors.

License

MIT