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Applies to: Embedded ❌, Enterprise ✅ A CREATE TABLE ... AS SELECT (CTAS) reads directly from a HuggingFace dataset or an existing Lance dataset in object storage, once a storage integration covers that location — the integration is never named in the statement, LanceDB matches it by URI prefix.

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Import a HuggingFace dataset

See Inspect Datasets for the full workflow, including querying a dataset directly without importing it first.

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Import a Lance dataset from object storage

An s3://, gs:// or az:// prefix reads an existing Lance dataset the same way as a managed table — use this to copy a dataset another process already wrote in Lance format, not an arbitrary file format. See Storage Integration for GCS and Azure examples.

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How the import runs

See Distributed Write for how an import’s writes divide across plan executors, and when a small import instead runs as one local task.
Importing requires a native database with database_manifest_enabled. Combining a HuggingFace source with a WAL-backed destination table in one CTAS is rejected, since the import cannot publish a base-only read that omits the destination’s unflushed data.

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What to read next

Define Storage Integration

Set up the credential an import reads through.

Inspect Datasets

Query and import HuggingFace or object-storage datasets in full.

Distributed Write

How an import’s writes divide across plan executors.

Storage Integration

The complete SQL reference for every provider.