## Summary Replaces the single-roundtrip `UNION ALL` DeltaChannel read with a two-stage query that avoids fetching unused snapshot blobs, then removes the old combined path entirely. ### Problem `_get_channel_writes_history` used a single `UNION ALL` query that fetched **all** checkpoint metadata, writes, and blobs for a `(thread_id, channel)` in one shot. With `snapshot_frequency=N`, this pulled back O(N/freq) full-size snapshot blobs even though only the nearest one is needed to seed reconstruction. At 500 turns with `snapshot_frequency=10`, this meant fetching ~100 complete message-history snapshots per read. ### Solution Two-stage read: - **Stage 1** — lightweight scan of `checkpoints` only (no blob bytes): walks the parent chain from the target checkpoint and stops at the first ancestor with a snapshot, returning `chain_cids` and `seed_version` - **Stage 2** — targeted fetch: only the writes for `chain_cids` and the single seed blob at `seed_version` The two-stage path is now unconditional — the old combined query and `LG_DELTA_TWO_STAGE_QUERY` env-var gate have been removed. ### Sentinel cleanup `DELTA_SENTINEL` is now a pure in-memory signal and is never written to storage: - Postgres `put()` already stripped it from `channel_values` before writing blobs - Memory saver `put()` now stores `"empty"` instead of serializing the sentinel - `EXT_DELTA_SENTINEL` (msgpack ext code 8) removed from `JsonPlusSerializer` - `DELTA_SENTINEL` is kept as an in-memory marker: `DeltaChannel.checkpoint()` returns it so savers know to skip it, and `_ChannelWritesHistory.seed` uses it to mean "no snapshot found, start from empty" ## Performance Benchmarked at `snapshot_frequency=10` on Postgres (`~100 tok/msg`): | turns | old combined query | two-stage | |------:|-------------------:|----------:| | 50 | 6.0ms | 2.8ms (2.1x faster) | | 100 | 10.1ms | 5.6ms (1.8x faster) | | 500 | **216.1ms** | 15.3ms (**14x faster**) | The old query's read time grew super-linearly with turn count because each read fetched O(N/freq) full snapshot blobs. Two-stage keeps read depth bounded by `snapshot_frequency` regardless of thread length. ## Test plan - `make test` in `libs/checkpoint`, `libs/checkpoint-postgres`, `libs/langgraph` - Removed `test_delta_sentinel_serde_round_trip` (sentinel no longer serializable) - Updated `test_memory.py` — delta channel blobs stored as `"empty"`, not serialized sentinel - Updated `test_channels.py` — `channel_values` no longer contains sentinel key for DeltaChannels - Deleted `test_delta_channel_two_stage_benchmark.py` (one-stage vs two-stage comparison; path no longer exists) --------- Co-authored-by: Sydney Runkle <54324534+sydney-runkle@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
LangGraph Checkpoint
This library defines the base interface for LangGraph checkpointers. Checkpointers provide a persistence layer for LangGraph. They allow you to interact with and manage the graph's state. When you use a graph with a checkpointer, the checkpointer saves a checkpoint of the graph state at every superstep, enabling several powerful capabilities like human-in-the-loop, "memory" between interactions and more.
Key concepts
Checkpoint
Checkpoint is a snapshot of the graph state at a given point in time. Checkpoint tuple refers to an object containing checkpoint and the associated config, metadata and pending writes.
Thread
Threads enable the checkpointing of multiple different runs, making them essential for multi-tenant chat applications and other scenarios where maintaining separate states is necessary. A thread is a unique ID assigned to a series of checkpoints saved by a checkpointer. When using a checkpointer, you must specify a thread_id and optionally checkpoint_id when running the graph.
thread_idis simply the ID of a thread. This is always required.checkpoint_idcan optionally be passed. This identifier refers to a specific checkpoint within a thread. This can be used to kick off a run of a graph from some point halfway through a thread.
You must pass these when invoking the graph as part of the configurable part of the config, e.g.
{"configurable": {"thread_id": "1"}} # valid config
{"configurable": {"thread_id": "1", "checkpoint_id": "0c62ca34-ac19-445d-bbb0-5b4984975b2a"}} # also valid config
Serde
langgraph_checkpoint also defines protocol for serialization/deserialization (serde) and provides an default implementation (langgraph.checkpoint.serde.jsonplus.JsonPlusSerializer) that handles a wide variety of types, including LangChain and LangGraph primitives, datetimes, enums and more.
Important
Checkpoint deserialization security: By default the serializer allows any Python type found in checkpoint data. New applications should set the environment variable
LANGGRAPH_STRICT_MSGPACK=trueor pass an explicitallowed_msgpack_moduleslist toJsonPlusSerializerto restrict deserialization to known-safe types.
Pending writes
When a graph node fails mid-execution at a given superstep, LangGraph stores pending checkpoint writes from any other nodes that completed successfully at that superstep, so that whenever we resume graph execution from that superstep we don't re-run the successful nodes.
Interface
Each checkpointer should conform to langgraph.checkpoint.base.BaseCheckpointSaver interface and must implement the following methods:
.put- Store a checkpoint with its configuration and metadata..put_writes- Store intermediate writes linked to a checkpoint (i.e. pending writes)..get_tuple- Fetch a checkpoint tuple using for a given configuration (thread_idandcheckpoint_id)..list- List checkpoints that match a given configuration and filter criteria..delete_thread()- Delete all checkpoints and writes associated with a thread..get_next_version()- Generate the next version ID for a channel.
If the checkpointer will be used with asynchronous graph execution (i.e. executing the graph via .ainvoke, .astream, .abatch), checkpointer must implement asynchronous versions of the above methods (.aput, .aput_writes, .aget_tuple, .alist). Similarly, the checkpointer must implement .adelete_thread() if asynchronous thread cleanup is desired. The base class provides a default implementation of .get_next_version() that generates an integer sequence starting from 1, but this method should be overridden for custom versioning schemes.
Usage
from langgraph.checkpoint.memory import InMemorySaver
write_config = {"configurable": {"thread_id": "1", "checkpoint_ns": ""}}
read_config = {"configurable": {"thread_id": "1"}}
checkpointer = InMemorySaver()
checkpoint = {
"v": 4,
"ts": "2024-07-31T20:14:19.804150+00:00",
"id": "1ef4f797-8335-6428-8001-8a1503f9b875",
"channel_values": {
"my_key": "meow",
"node": "node"
},
"channel_versions": {
"__start__": 2,
"my_key": 3,
"start:node": 3,
"node": 3
},
"versions_seen": {
"__input__": {},
"__start__": {
"__start__": 1
},
"node": {
"start:node": 2
}
},
}
# store checkpoint
checkpointer.put(write_config, checkpoint, {}, {})
# load checkpoint
checkpointer.get(read_config)
# list checkpoints
list(checkpointer.list(read_config))