Feast Feature Store

Key Features

• Dual-store architecture with Redis online store for sub-millisecond feature retrieval and PostgreSQL offline store for historical analysis
• Feature registry in PostgreSQL with versioning, lineage tracking, and metadata management for reproducible ML experiments
• Time-travel queries enabling point-in-time correct feature retrieval for training data generation without data leakage
• Materialization engine for syncing features from offline PostgreSQL storage to online Redis cache on configurable schedules
• Feature server REST API on port 6566 supporting both online feature retrieval and offline feature extraction
• Redis hash-based feature storage optimized for batch feature retrieval across multiple entities and feature groups
• PostgreSQL JSONB support for flexible feature schema evolution without breaking existing feature definitions
• Feast CLI integration for feature definition deployment, data source registration, and infrastructure management

Common Use Cases

• 1Real-time recommendation systems requiring millisecond feature lookups for user preferences, item embeddings, and contextual signals
• 2Fraud detection models needing historical transaction patterns from PostgreSQL and real-time account features from Redis
• 3ML model training pipelines requiring consistent feature definitions between offline training and online serving environments
• 4A/B testing frameworks where feature flags and user segments must be consistently applied across training and inference
• 5Financial trading algorithms needing both historical market data analysis and real-time feature serving for trade decisions
• 6Customer churn prediction models combining long-term behavioral patterns with real-time activity features
• 7MLOps platforms centralizing feature engineering across multiple data science teams and model deployments

Prerequisites

• Minimum 2GB RAM (512MB for Redis online store, 1GB for PostgreSQL offline store, 512MB for Feast server)
• Docker Engine 20.10+ and Docker Compose 2.0+ with networking capabilities for inter-service communication
• Available ports 6566 (Feast API), 6379 (Redis), and 5432 (PostgreSQL) for service access
• Understanding of feature store concepts including entities, feature views, and online/offline stores
• Python environment for Feast SDK usage and feature definition management outside containers
• Basic knowledge of SQL for PostgreSQL feature queries and Redis data structures for online serving optimization

docker-compose.yml

1services: 
2  feast: 
3    image: feastdev/feature-server:latest
4    container_name: feast
5    restart: unless-stopped
6    command: feast serve -h 0.0.0.0 -p 6566
7    volumes: 
8      - ./feature_repo:/feature_repo
9    working_dir: /feature_repo
10    ports: 
11      - "6566:6566"
12    depends_on: 
13      - redis
14      - postgres
15    networks: 
16      - feast
17
18  redis: 
19    image: redis:alpine
20    container_name: feast-redis
21    ports: 
22      - "6379:6379"
23    networks: 
24      - feast
25
26  postgres: 
27    image: postgres:16-alpine
28    container_name: feast-postgres
29    environment: 
30      POSTGRES_DB: feast
31      POSTGRES_USER: feast
32      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: feast
33    volumes: 
34      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
35    networks: 
36      - feast
37
38volumes: 
39  postgres_data: 
40
41networks: 
42  feast: 
43    driver: bridge

.env Template

1# Initialize with: feast init feature_repo

Usage Notes

Individual Services(3 services)

Copy individual services to mix and match with your existing compose files.

feast:
  image: feastdev/feature-server:latest
  container_name: feast
  restart: unless-stopped
  command: feast serve -h 0.0.0.0 -p 6566
  volumes:
    - ./feature_repo:/feature_repo
  working_dir: /feature_repo
  ports:
    - "6566:6566"
  depends_on:
    - redis
    - postgres
  networks:
    - feast

redis:
  image: redis:alpine
  container_name: feast-redis
  ports:
    - "6379:6379"
  networks:
    - feast

postgres:
  image: postgres:16-alpine
  container_name: feast-postgres
  environment:
    POSTGRES_DB: feast
    POSTGRES_USER: feast
    POSTGRES_PASSWORD: feast
  volumes:
    - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
  networks:
    - feast

Quick Start

1# 1. Create the compose file
2cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
3services:
4  feast:
5    image: feastdev/feature-server:latest
6    container_name: feast
7    restart: unless-stopped
8    command: feast serve -h 0.0.0.0 -p 6566
9    volumes:
10      - ./feature_repo:/feature_repo
11    working_dir: /feature_repo
12    ports:
13      - "6566:6566"
14    depends_on:
15      - redis
16      - postgres
17    networks:
18      - feast
19
20  redis:
21    image: redis:alpine
22    container_name: feast-redis
23    ports:
24      - "6379:6379"
25    networks:
26      - feast
27
28  postgres:
29    image: postgres:16-alpine
30    container_name: feast-postgres
31    environment:
32      POSTGRES_DB: feast
33      POSTGRES_USER: feast
34      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: feast
35    volumes:
36      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
37    networks:
38      - feast
39
40volumes:
41  postgres_data:
42
43networks:
44  feast:
45    driver: bridge
46EOF
47
48# 2. Create the .env file
49cat > .env << 'EOF'
50# Initialize with: feast init feature_repo
51EOF
52
53# 3. Start the services
54docker compose up -d
55
56# 4. View logs
57docker compose logs -f

One-Liner

Run this command to download and set up the recipe in one step:

1curl -fsSL https://docker.recipes/api/recipes/feast/run | bash

Troubleshooting