Document automatic vector exclusion from _source (knn_default_excludes) - #12979
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Document automatic vector exclusion from _source (knn_default_excludes)#12979shatejas wants to merge 1 commit into
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August 25, 2026 19:21
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@kolchfa-aws Can we put a backport 3.8 label for this please, Thanks! |
Add documentation for the knn_default_excludes system-generated search request processor, introduced in OpenSearch 3.8, which automatically excludes knn_vector fields from _source in search responses. - Add an "Automatically exclude vectors from search results" section to the vector search performance tuning page, covering how to enable the processor, default behavior, how to override it, and a note that scoring is unaffected because exclusion is applied on the fetch path. - Register knn_default_excludes in the system-generated search request processors table and add a related-documentation link. Signed-off-by: Tejas Shah <shatejas@amazon.com>
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vamshin
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Aug 28, 2026
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| Instead of manually specifying vector fields in `_source.excludes` on every request, you can let OpenSearch exclude them automatically. When enabled, the `knn_default_excludes` [system-generated search request processor]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/search-plugins/search-pipelines/system-generated-search-processors/) inspects the index mappings for each search request, finds all `knn_vector` fields (including those nested in object or nested fields), and adds them to `_source.excludes` before the request runs. This reduces the search response payload without requiring any per-request configuration. | ||
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| The processor is disabled by default. To enable it, add its factory, `knn_default_excludes_factory`, to the `cluster.search.enabled_system_generated_factories` cluster setting: |
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Why is it disabled by default? I thought we want to enable by default
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There isn't a way to enable it by default, users can do that in opensearch.yml they create
vamshin
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Aug 31, 2026
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Add documentation for the knn_default_excludes system-generated search request processor, introduced in OpenSearch 3.8, which automatically excludes knn_vector fields from _source in search responses.
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