Re: Proposal: Track last-used timestamp for index usage

Hi Raghav,

On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 7:23 PM Raghav Mittal <mittalr086(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I’ve been exploring index usage statistics in PostgreSQL and noticed that
> pg_stat_user_indexes only provides cumulative counters (idx_scan), but not
> recency information.
>
> Problem:
> - Counters reset on restart or pg_stat_reset()
> - No way to determine when an index was last used
> - Makes it hard to safely identify unused indexes
>
> Proposal:
> Introduce lightweight tracking of last-used timestamp for indexes.
>

Could you elaborate the problem trying to solve here? As you mentioned
idx_scan already tracks the usage. Periodic snapshots should provide the
usage over a period of time. What is the purpose of exact timestamp?

Thanks,
Satya