Rebuild an Index

Use the rebuild index operation to rebuild an existing vector index with updated parameters.

The operation recreates the existing index, optionally with new configuration parameters. This is useful for optimizing search performance or adjusting to changed data distributions. The rebuild runs asynchronously as a background job.

See the following for an example of an index rebuild. In this case, all indexes are rebuilt with parallel DDL:

from oracle_vecdb import OracleVecDB, Configuration

client = OracleVecDB(Configuration(
    rest_url="https://<host>/ords/<schema>/_/db-api/stable/vecdb/",
    access_token="<bearer-token>", # or username="<user>", password="<pass>"
))

response = client.rebuild_index(
    table_name='products',
    index_params={
        'index_type': 'all',
        'parallel_creation': 4
    }
)

print(response)

A JSON response is returned containing the rebuild job ID and status.

For more information about the rebuild_index operation, see Python API Reference.

See how POST /vecdb/vector-indexes/{vector_table_name} can be used in the following examples:

Vector-only rebuild:

curl -X POST \
  "https://<host>:<port>/ords/<schema>/_/db-api/stable/vecdb/vector-indexes/product_vectors" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  # Choose ONE authentication method:

  # Option 1: Basic authentication
  -u "<user>:<password>" \

  # Option 2: OAuth Bearer token
  # -H "Authorization: Bearer <access_token>" \

  -d '{
    "indexParams": {
      "index_type": "vector",
      "parallel_creation": 4
    }
  }'

Metadata-only rebuild:

curl -X POST \
  "https://<host>:<port>/ords/<schema>/_/db-api/stable/vecdb/vector-indexes/product_vectors" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  # Choose ONE authentication method:

  # Option 1: Basic authentication
  -u "<user>:<password>" \

  # Option 2: OAuth Bearer token
  # -H "Authorization: Bearer <access_token>" \

  -d '{
    "indexParams": {
      "index_type": "metadata",
      "metadata_index_params": {
        "include_paths": ["tenant"]
      }
    }
  }'

All-index rebuild:

curl -X POST \
  "https://<host>:<port>/ords/<schema>/_/db-api/stable/vecdb/vector-indexes/product_vectors" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  # Choose ONE authentication method:

  # Option 1: Basic authentication
  -u "<user>:<password>" \

  # Option 2: OAuth Bearer token
  # -H "Authorization: Bearer <access_token>" \

  -d '{
    "indexParams": {
      "index_type": "all",
      "parallel_creation": 4
    }
  }'

Responses:

Example 200 response:

{
  "job_creator": "APPUSER",
  "job_name": "VECDB_REBUILD_INDEX_20260501103000",
  "job_type": "PLSQL_BLOCK",
  "operation": "REBUILD",
  "state": "RUNNING",
  "start_date": "2026-05-01T10:30:00.118886Z",
  "links": [
    {
      "href": "/vecdb/vector-indexes/jobs/",
      "rel": "collection"
    },
    {
      "href": "/vecdb/vector-indexes/jobs/vecdb_rebuild_index_20260501103000/",
      "rel": "self"
    },
    {
      "href": "/vecdb/vector-indexes/jobs/vecdb_rebuild_index_20260501103000/jobfile",
      "rel": "related"
    }
  ]
}

400 - the request body included invalid parameters.
404 - the vector table was not found.

For more information about POST /vecdb/vector-indexes/{vector_table_name}, see REST API Reference.

See how DBMS_VECTOR_DATABASE.REBUILD_INDEX can be used in the following example:

dbms_vector_database.rebuild_index(
    table_name => 'product_vectors',
    index_params => JSON('{
      "vector_index_params": {
        "auto_index": true,
        "organization": "INMEMORY GRAPH",
        "distance_metric": "COSINE",
        "advanced_params": {
          "neighbors": 32,
          "efConstruction": 128,
          "rescore_factor": 4
        }
      },
      "parallel_creation": 2
    }')
);

Example response:

{
  "message": "Vector index VECIDX_PRODUCT_VECTORS_20260501T100000 Rebuild successfully for table PRODUCT_VECTORS"
}

For more information about the PL/SQL implementation, including parameters, see REBUILD_INDEX.