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Enable Vectors on self-hosted deployments

Learn how to configure and enable Vectors for self-hosted Retool deployments.

Organizations with self-hosted Retool deployments must configure and enable Retool Vectors before use.

Install dependencies​

To use Vectors for self-hosted deployments:

  • Configure Retool Database on your self-hosted deployment.
  • Install pgvector, an open-source PostgreSQL extension for similarity search, in the same database cluster as Retool Database. Ensure your pgvector version is compatible with your PostgreSQL version.
  • If you're using Amazon RDS, you also need to run PostgreSQL 15.2 or later.

Make sure to use Retool Database (often the retooldb-postgres container), not the Retool storage database (often postgres). The storage database tracks app info, users, audit logs, etc. Retool Database is a PostgreSQL database you can use in apps and workflows, and has a UI for creating and editing tables.

Verify installation​

Once you have enabled Retool Database and pgvector, you can start using Vectors. To verify that pgvector is installed correctly and the role you are using for Retool Database can create tables, run the following SQL statement in a query:

CREATE TABLE sample_vector_table (id serial PRIMARY KEY, embedding vector(1536));

You should also test the connection to Retool Database using the available connection strings.