Let’s answer a different question first. What happens when the plan gets invalidated, when the index being used gets dropped or some other structural change occurs so that the plan is no longer valid? I answered that question in this blog post. The plan being forced, after the object is dropped, becomes invalid, so that plan can no longer be used. The Query Store still attempts to apply the plan during any recompile or compile event of the query in question, but it fails and a proper plan is used. All this means, I think, the Query Store is going to ignore the new index, since a new index doesn’t invalidate an existing plan. A new index just makes new plans possible. However, when I was asked this question, this wasn’t something I had tested, so I gave a speculative, best guess, answer with plenty of caveats and the promise to provide a tested answer ASAP. Here we go.
Read on for the full answer.