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Create a collection

Weaviate stores data in "collections". A collection is a set of objects that share the same data structure. In our movie database, we might have a collection of movies, a collection of actors, and a collection of reviews.

Here we will create a collection of movies.

Code​

This example creates a collection for the movie data:

import weaviate

import weaviate.classes.config as wc
import os


# Instantiate your client (not shown). e.g.:
# headers = {"X-OpenAI-Api-Key": os.getenv("OPENAI_APIKEY")}  # Replace with your OpenAI API key
# client = weaviate.connect_to_weaviate_cloud(..., headers=headers) or
# client = weaviate.connect_to_local(..., headers=headers)

client.collections.create(
    name="Movie",
    properties=[
        wc.Property(name="title", data_type=wc.DataType.TEXT),
        wc.Property(name="overview", data_type=wc.DataType.TEXT),
        wc.Property(name="vote_average", data_type=wc.DataType.NUMBER),
        wc.Property(name="genre_ids", data_type=wc.DataType.INT_ARRAY),
        wc.Property(name="release_date", data_type=wc.DataType.DATE),
        wc.Property(name="tmdb_id", data_type=wc.DataType.INT),
    ],
    # Define the vectorizer module
    vectorizer_config=wc.Configure.Vectorizer.text2vec_openai(),
    # Define the generative module
    generative_config=wc.Configure.Generative.openai()
)

client.close()
py docs  API docs

Each collection definition must have a name. Then, you can define additional parameters like we've done in this example.

Explain the code​

Properties​

Properties are the object attributes that you want to store in the collection. Each property has a name and a data type.

In our movie database, we have properties like title, release_date and genre_ids, with data types like TEXT (string), DATE (date), or INT (integer). It's also possible to have arrays of integers, like we have with genre_ids.

Auto-schema​

Weaviate can automatically infer the schema from the data. However, it's a good practice to define the properties explicitly, for better control and to avoid surprises.

Vectorizer configuration​

If you do not specify the vector yourself, Weaviate will use a specified vectorizer to generate vector embeddings from your data.

In this code example, we specify the text2vec-openai module with default options.

    vectorizer_config=wc.Configure.Vectorizer.text2vec_openai(),
py docs  API docs

Generative configuration​

If you wish to use your collection with a generative model (e.g. a large language model), you must specify the generative module.

In this code example, we specify the openai module (generative-openai is the full name) with default options.

    generative_config=wc.Configure.Generative.openai()
py docs  API docs
Generative model integration mutability

A collection's generative model integration configuration is mutable from v1.25.23, v1.26.8 and v1.27.1. See this section for details on how to update the collection configuration.

Python classes​

The code example makes use of classes such as Property, DataType and Configure. They are defined in the weaviate.classes.config submodule and are used to define the collection.

For convenience, we import the submodule as wc and use classes from it.

import weaviate.classes.config as wc
import os
py docs  API docs

Questions and feedback​

If you have any questions or feedback, let us know in the user forum.