fix: Avoid creating MoveTables in case of non-empty target tables

go/vt/vtctl/workflow/server.go

@@ -1395,6 +1395,29 @@ func (s *Server) moveTablesCreate(ctx context.Context, req *vtctldatapb.MoveTabl
 	}
 	s.Logger().Infof("Found tables to move: %s", strings.Join(tables, ","))
 
+	// Check if any table being moved is already non-empty in the target keyspace.
+	// Skip this check for multi-tenant migrations.
+	if req.GetWorkflowOptions().GetTenantId() == "" {
+		targetKeyspaceTables, err := getTablesInKeyspace(ctx, sourceTopo, s.tmc, targetKeyspace)
+		if err != nil {
+			return nil, err
+		}
+
+		var alreadyExistingTables []string
+		for _, t := range targetKeyspaceTables {
+			if slices.Contains(tables, t) {
+				alreadyExistingTables = append(alreadyExistingTables, t)
+			}
+		}
+
+		if len(alreadyExistingTables) > 0 {
+			err = validateEmptyTables(ctx, sourceTopo, s.tmc, targetKeyspace, alreadyExistingTables)
+			if err != nil {
+				return nil, err
+			}
+		}
+	}
+
 	if !vschema.Sharded {
 		// Save the original in case we need to restore it for a late failure
 		// in the defer().

go/vt/vtctl/workflow/utils.go

@@ -1011,3 +1011,56 @@ func applyTargetShards(ts *trafficSwitcher, targetShards []string) error {
 	}
 	return nil
 }
+
+// validateEmptyTables checks if all specified tables in the keyspace are empty across all shards.
+// It queries each shard's primary tablet and if any non-empty table is found, it returns an error
+// containing a list of non-empty tables.
+func validateEmptyTables(ctx context.Context, ts *topo.Server, tmc tmclient.TabletManagerClient, keyspace string, tables []string) error {
+	shards, err := ts.GetServingShards(ctx, keyspace)
+	if err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
+	if len(shards) == 0 {
+		return fmt.Errorf("keyspace %s has no shards", keyspace)
+	}
+
+	isFaultyTable := map[string]bool{}
+	for _, shard := range shards {
+		primary := shard.PrimaryAlias
+		if primary == nil {
+			return fmt.Errorf("shard does not have a primary: %v", shard.ShardName())
+		}
+
+		ti, err := ts.GetTablet(ctx, primary)
+		if err != nil {
+			return err
+		}
+
+		var selectQueries []string
+		for _, t := range tables {
+			selectQueries = append(selectQueries, fmt.Sprintf("(select '%s' from %s limit 1)", t, t))
+		}
+		query := strings.Join(selectQueries, "union all")
+
+		res, err := tmc.ExecuteFetchAsDba(ctx, ti.Tablet, true, &tabletmanagerdatapb.ExecuteFetchAsDbaRequest{
+			Query:   []byte(query),
+			MaxRows: uint64(len(tables)),
+		})
+		if err != nil {
+			return err
+		}
+		for _, row := range res.Rows {
+			isFaultyTable[string(row.Values)] = true
+		}
+	}
+
+	var faultyTables []string
+	for table := range isFaultyTable {
+		faultyTables = append(faultyTables, table)
+	}
+
+	if len(faultyTables) > 0 {
+		return fmt.Errorf("target keyspace contains following non-empty table(s): %s", strings.Join(faultyTables, ", "))
+	}
+	return nil
+}