Migration CLI

The recommended path for moving existing vector search workloads to LambdaDB is the LambdaDB Migration CLI. The CLI inventories the source system, generates an editable LambdaDB mapping, creates the target collection when needed, streams records into LambdaDB, saves local checkpoints, and can validate migrated documents before cutover.

Supported sources

For PostgreSQL applications, see Search with PostgreSQL and LambdaDB for collection design, search compatibility, and application-owned ingestion. PostgreSQL is not currently a Migration CLI source.

Source	Status	Notes
Qdrant	Supported in CLI `v0.1.6`	Dense vectors, named dense vectors, sparse vectors, payload indexes, local checkpoints, validation reports, and dense/sparse-vector query overlap checks.
Pinecone Serverless	Supported in CLI `v0.1.6`	Dense indexes, sparse indexes, namespaces, ID-prefix scoped migrations, metadata payloads, local checkpoints, validation reports, and dense/sparse-vector query overlap checks.
Elasticsearch	Supported in CLI `v0.1.6`	Index mappings, scalar/text fields, dense vectors, PIT/search_after reads, local checkpoints, and validation reports. Query-overlap validation is not implemented for Elasticsearch yet.
OpenSearch	Planned	Use the same CLI workflow once OpenSearch support is available.
Chroma	Planned	Use the same CLI workflow once Chroma support is available.
Weaviate	Planned	Use the same CLI workflow once Weaviate support is available.

Migration workflow

Install the CLI.
Generate an inventory and editable mapping from the source.
Review the generated LambdaDB collection and field mapping.
Run a dry run.
Run the migration with validation enabled.
Review the validation report and representative search results.
Switch production traffic after result quality, latency, and application query rewrites are verified.

Install the CLI

The current stable release is v0.1.6. The executable is lambdadb-migration; the general LambdaDB CLI uses lambdadb for JSONL imports and everyday queries.

Homebrew
Standalone installer

With Homebrew on macOS or Linux:

brew install lambdadb/tap/lambdadb-migration
lambdadb-migration --version
lambdadb-migration --help

The public tap installs the released binary without Go or Node. To update:

brew update
brew upgrade lambdadb/tap/lambdadb-migration

To remove the binary:

brew uninstall lambdadb/tap/lambdadb-migration

The tap currently provides 0.1.6. Future GitHub releases may reach the tap later, after the formula is updated.

Download the installer to a scratch directory and inspect it before running. This example pins both the installer and the binary release:

curl -fsSLo install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lambdadb/lambdadb-migration/v0.1.6/install.sh
less install.sh
sh install.sh --version v0.1.6 --install-dir "$HOME/.local/bin"
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
lambdadb-migration --version
lambdadb-migration --help

The installer checks the release archive against checksums.txt. It requires curl, tar, and sha256sum or shasum. No Go or Node runtime is required. Without --install-dir, it uses /usr/local/bin and may request sudo.To install or update to the latest GitHub release with the current installer:

curl -fsSLo install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lambdadb/lambdadb-migration/main/install.sh
less install.sh
sh install.sh --install-dir "$HOME/.local/bin"

To remove a standalone installation, use its original directory:

sh install.sh --uninstall --install-dir "$HOME/.local/bin"

Release binaries are available for macOS and Linux, amd64 and arm64. Windows binaries are not provided. Public Homebrew installation has been verified on macOS arm64 and Linux amd64; macOS amd64 and Linux arm64 archives have checksum and architecture-header verification only. See installation evidence. Before switching installation methods, inspect type -a lambdadb-migration and identify which binary is on PATH. Remove only the old installation using its original method. Do not force-overwrite a Homebrew symlink or run the standalone installer against a Homebrew-managed path. Uninstalling the binary does not remove mappings, checkpoints, or credentials.

Common CLI behavior

LambdaDB Cloud uses region-specific API base URLs. Use your project’s base URL and project name, together with a project API key created in its API Keys tab. Project creation does not automatically issue a key; save the full value when you create it, because it is shown only once. See API key management. Do not assume a global default URL or a fixed project name.

Set these values before running migration commands:

export LAMBDADB_BASE_URL="YOUR_REGION_BASE_URL"
export LAMBDADB_PROJECT_NAME="YOUR_PROJECT_NAME"
export LAMBDADB_PROJECT_API_KEY="YOUR_PROJECT_API_KEY"

The migration executable reads these environment variables or its own command flags. It does not load .env files or the general CLI’s saved configuration. Generated mappings set target.createCollection: true by default. With that setting, the migration creates the LambdaDB collection if it does not already exist, then begins writing documents. The CLI does not poll a collection status; transient write failures use its retry policy. Use --migration.create-collection=false when the LambdaDB collection already exists and the migration should fail instead of creating it. The CLI stores local checkpoints under .lambdadb-migration/checkpoints by default. If a migration is interrupted, rerun the same command to resume from the last saved checkpoint. Use --migration.restart to start from the beginning. A completed checkpoint skips re-reading and uploading documents on rerun. Use --migration.restart to migrate new source data after a completed run. Validation-enabled runs retain sample documents in local checkpoint files so validation can be retried without uploading again; protect these files as source data. If a completed checkpoint has no saved samples, restart to collect them or use --migration.validation-sample-size=0 for count-only validation.

Validation

Use --migration.validate for post-migration checks. Validation compares the accepted record count against the source inventory, fetches a sample of migrated documents from LambdaDB with strongly consistent reads, and compares sampled fields. Use --migration.validation-report to write a JSON report:

--migration.validate \
--migration.validation-report validation-report.json

For Qdrant and Pinecone vector migrations, --migration.query-overlap compares source and LambdaDB nearest-neighbor results for validation samples. By default, it reports overlap without failing the migration. Set --migration.query-overlap-min-ratio above 0 to require a minimum average overlap. Query-overlap validation is not implemented for Elasticsearch yet.

Next steps

Search with PostgreSQL

Organize tenant, chat, and repository search datasets and review PostgreSQL search compatibility.

Migrate from Qdrant

Move Qdrant collections, points, vectors, sparse vectors, and payload indexes to LambdaDB.

Migrate from Pinecone

Move Pinecone Serverless indexes, namespaces, vectors, and metadata to LambdaDB.

Migrate from Elasticsearch

Move Elasticsearch index mappings, documents, and dense vectors to LambdaDB.

Create a collection

Learn how LambdaDB collection index configurations map to migrated data.

Bulk upsert data

Understand LambdaDB bulk loading behavior for unmanaged-vector collections.

Hybrid query

Rewrite dense, sparse, and lexical hybrid search after migration.

Get started

Migrations

Collections

Data versioning

Documents

Search

Manage Costs

Supported sources

Migration workflow

Install the CLI

Common CLI behavior

Validation

Next steps

Search with PostgreSQL

Migrate from Qdrant

Migrate from Pinecone

Migrate from Elasticsearch

Create a collection

Bulk upsert data

Hybrid query

​Supported sources

​Migration workflow

​Install the CLI

​Common CLI behavior

​Validation

​Next steps

Search with PostgreSQL

Migrate from Qdrant

Migrate from Pinecone

Migrate from Elasticsearch

Create a collection

Bulk upsert data

Hybrid query

Supported sources

Migration workflow

Install the CLI

Common CLI behavior

Validation

Next steps