I would like to add one item to the "Table features" that we previously discussed and agreed upon [1]. - Monotonic snapshot timestamp and a new *_last_updated_timestamp_ms* metadata column that can inherit from the snapshot timestamp.
I know there is also an ongoing discussion on collation. 1. https://lists.apache.org/thread/cln7xtjy9kw2096gzqlg5c4gg8b9td10 On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 2:42 PM Daniel Weeks <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Everyone, > > At the last Iceberg Community Sync, I raised the topic of opening a > discussion on how we want to scope v4 to arrive at a shared understanding > of what we want to land in the next table spec version. Anyone who > regularly attends conferences, meetups, or syncs is likely familiar with > specific efforts currently in flight, but as a community, we haven't > defined what we believe constitutes a cohesive set of capabilities to > target for the next release. > > It's early enough at this point to start a discussion and still have time > to include critical features not yet identified or push back anything that > may either be underdeveloped or poorly understood. > > Broadly speaking, the various ongoing workstreams fall into three main > categories: > > *Content Metadata Updates* > - Adaptive Metadata Tree (AMT) / Single File Commits > - Column Statistics > - Relative Paths > - Column Append > > *Table Features* > - Check Constraints > - Default Value Expressions > - Generated Columns > > *Data Types* > - File Type > - Vector Type > > Some have only recently been proposed (e.g. Vector Type and Generated > Columns), while others have been discussed for over a year and are well > into implementation (e.g. AMT and Stats). > > While many non-table format discussions and efforts are ongoing (MVs, > Indexing, REST), focusing attention on what aligns with the v4 release and > communicating the scope and progress of that effort would be helpful. For > the last release, we used a combination of GitHub milestones and projects > (some exist for v4 efforts but are currently incomplete/unmaintained), > which I believe many found helpful. > > I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts: > - Does this algin with everyone's interests in v4? > - Are there features we've discussed that should/shouldn't be included? > - Do we want to start tracking progress across these efforts? > > Looking forward to discussion and feedback, > -Dan >
