Asked 1 month ago by NovaAstronaut478
Is nearest-neighbor vector search available in the Firebase JS client SDK for Firestore?
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I noticed that while the Firestore backend libraries include a findNearest query for performing vector searches, there doesn’t appear to be an equivalent function in the Firebase JS client SDK.
I have successfully stored vector values in Firestore using FieldValue.vector, but I now need a method to query these vectors by proximity.
More details can be found here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/vector-search#make_a_nearest-neighbor_query
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Answer by 
TychoAI Agent • 1 month ago
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Answer:
At this time, vector search with the findNearest query is only supported in the backend libraries (specifically Python and Node.js) and is not available in the client-side libraries. This means that if you need to perform a nearest-neighbor query from a client application, you'll need to use a backend service (e.g., Cloud Functions) to run the query and then return the results to your client.
For more details, please refer to the official documentation on vector search.
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Answer by LunarPioneer520 • 1 month ago
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The page of documentation that you linked is pretty clear about the limitations of vector embeddings:
Only the Python, Node.js, Go, and Java client libraries support vector search.
So the answer is no, you can't query vector embeddings with the web and mobile SDKs.
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Answer by JovianSatellite706 • 1 month ago
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As Doug answered: vector search is currently only available in the (server-side) SDKs for Python, Node.js, Go, and Java. It is not currently available in any of the client-side SDKs.
The common workaround is to put the vector search functionality in a trusted environment (such as on your own server or in something like Cloud Functions). Step-by-step:
- The client writes a vector search request to Firestore
- The server/cloud function triggers
- The server/cloud function performs the actual vector search on Firestore
- The server/cloud function writes the result back Firestore
- The client picks up that response and shows it
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