INSERT INTO a temp table, and have an IDENTITY field created, without first declaring the temp table?

Question

I need to select a bunch of data into a temp table to then do some secondary calculations; To help make it work more efficiently, I would like to have an IDENTITY column on that

Answer 1

IIRC, the INSERT INTO command uses the schema of the source table to create the temp table. That's part of the reason you can't just try to create a table with an additional column. Identity columns are internally tied to a SQL Server construct called a generator.