# CREATE TABLE `target` CLONE `source`: same definition plus independent copies of its rows

`POST /datanotes/operations/clone_table/` (operation `clone_table`)

CREATE TABLE `target` CLONE `source`: same definition plus independent copies of its rows
(deep clone), optionally as of a `version` / `timestamp`. `copy_rows: false` copies the
definition only (CREATE TABLE LIKE). `target`: `catalog.schema.table`, `schema.table` (in the
source's catalog) or a name (source's catalog and schema). Useful for experiments, e.g. a sandbox copy
in the `agent` catalog. The clone is a new table, so it needs the descriptions create_table does: a
source without them is refused, naming what to describe first (alter_table, alter_column). A past
version lacking one gets the one the source has now.

The schema changes only through operations like this one: never edit metastore.yaml by hand (no validation, no undo).

## Parameters

| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `X-Datanotes-Actor` | header | `string` | no | JSON: on whose behalf the write is made, recorded in the journal (`harness`, `model`, `session`). |

## Request body

`application/json`, required

| Property | Type | Required | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `source` | `string` | yes |  |  |
| `target` | `string` | yes |  |  |
| `version` | `integer \| null` | no | `null` |  |
| `timestamp` | `string \| null` | no | `null` |  |
| `copy_rows` | `boolean` | no | `true` | Copy the rows (default); false copies the definition only (CREATE TABLE LIKE). |
| `dry_run` | `boolean` | no | `false` |  |

## Responses

| Status | Description | Body |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 | Done. | `OpResult` (application/json) |
| 400 | Bad input: the body is not a JSON object, or an argument is unknown, missing or of the wrong type. | `Error` (application/json) |
| 401 | Missing or wrong bearer token. | `Error` (application/json) |
| 403 | A named token beyond its permissions (the engine's administration, tables outside its `write` patterns, schema changes without `ddl`). | `Error` (application/json) |
| 404 | Unknown table, view, migration, note or folder. | `Error` (application/json) |
| 409 | Ambiguous table name: it matches several tables (`paths` or `tables` lists them). | `AmbiguousName` (application/json) |
| 422 | Refused (validation failures, conflicts, an unmet `expect`): nothing written. Same body as 200, with `ok: false` and the reasons. | `OpResult` (application/json) |
| 500 | Unexpected error (`{error}`), or a write that failed partway and could not be rolled back: `rolled_back: false`, `failed` lists the files left (undo_migration on `migration_id` retries the rollback). | `OpResult \| Error` (application/json) |
| 503 | A write that failed partway (a file another program holds) and was rolled back: `rolled_back: true`, nothing written. Send it again later. Same body as 200, with `ok: false` and `failed`. | `OpResult` (application/json) |

The schemas named here are in [openapi.json](https://datanotes.dev/openapi.json) (`components.schemas`).