:::code-group
```python Python
# pip install "pinecone[grpc]"
from pinecone.grpc import PineconeGRPC as Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

pc.describe_index(name="movie-recommendations")
```

```javascript JavaScript
// npm install @pinecone-database/pinecone
import { Pinecone } from '@pinecone-database/pinecone';

const pc = new Pinecone({ apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY' });

await pc.describeIndex('movie-recommendations');
```

```java Java
import io.pinecone.clients.Pinecone;
import org.openapitools.db_control.client.model.*;

public class DescribeIndexExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Pinecone pc = new Pinecone.Builder("YOURE_API_KEY").build();
        IndexModel indexModel = pc.describeIndex("movie-recommendations");
        System.out.println(indexModel);
    }
}
```

```go Go
package main

import (
    "context"
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/pinecone-io/go-pinecone/v2/pinecone"
)

func prettifyStruct(obj interface{}) string {
    bytes, _ := json.MarshalIndent(obj, "", "  ")
    return string(bytes)
}

func main() {
    ctx := context.Background()

    pc, err := pinecone.NewClient(pinecone.NewClientParams{
        ApiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY",
    })
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("Failed to create Client: %v", err)
    }

    idx, err := pc.DescribeIndex(ctx, "movie-recommendations")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("Failed to describe index \"%v\": %v", idx.Name, err)
    } else {
        fmt.Printf("index: %v\n", prettifyStruct(idx))
    }
}
```

```csharp C#
using Pinecone;

var pinecone = new PineconeClient("YOUR_API_KEY");

var indexModel = await pinecone.DescribeIndexAsync("docs-example");

Console.WriteLine(indexModel);
```

```shell curl
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

curl -i -X GET "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/movie-recommendations" \
    -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
    -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2024-10"
```
:::

:::code-group
```Python Python
{'dimension': 1536,
  'host': 'example-index-4mkljsz.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io',
  'metric': 'cosine',
  'name': 'docs-example',
  'spec': {'serverless': {'cloud': 'aws', 'region': 'us-east-1'}},
  'status': {'ready': True, 'state': 'Ready'}}
```

```javascript JavaScript
{
  "name": "docs-example",
  "dimension": 1536,
  "metric": "cosine",
  "host": "example-index-4mkljsz.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "deletionProtection": "disabled",
  "tags": { "environment": "development", "example": "tag" },
  "spec": { "pod": undefined, "serverless": { "cloud": "aws", "region": "us-east-1" } },
  "status": { "ready": true, "state": "Ready" }
}
```

```java Java
class IndexModel {
    name: example-index
    dimension: 1536
    metric: cosine
    host: example-index-4mkljsz.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io
    deletionProtection: disabled
    spec: class IndexModelSpec {
        pod: null
        serverless: class ServerlessSpec {
            cloud: aws
            region: us-east-1
        }
    }
    status: class IndexModelStatus {
        ready: true
        state: Ready
    }
}
```

```go Go
index: {
  "name": "docs-example",
  "dimension": 1536,
  "host": "example-index-4mkljsz.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "metric": "cosine",
  "deletion_protection": "disabled",
  "spec": {
    "serverless": {
      "cloud": "aws",
      "region": "us-east-1"
    }
  },
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "tags": {
    "environment": "development",
    "example": "tag"
  }
}
```

```csharp C#
{
  "name": "docs-example",
  "dimension": 1536,
  "metric": "cosine",
  "host": "example-index-4mkljsz.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "deletion_protection": "disabled",
  "spec": {
    "pod": null,
    "serverless": {
      "cloud": "aws",
      "region": "us-east-1"
    }
  },
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  }
}
```

```json curl
{
    "name": "docs-example",
    "metric": "cosine",
    "dimension": 1536,
    "status": {
        "ready": true,
        "state": "Ready"
    },
    "host": "example-index-4mkljsz.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
    "spec": {
        "serverless": {
            "region": "us-east-1",
            "cloud": "aws"
        }
    },
    "deletion_protection": "disabled",
    "tags": {
        "environment": "development",
        "example": "tag"
    }
}
```
:::

`GET /indexes/{index_name}`

#### Authorizations

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `Api-Key` | `string` | - |  |

An API Key is required to call Pinecone APIs. Get yours from the [console](https://app.pinecone.io/).

#### Path Parameters

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `index_name` | `string` | - | The name of the index to be described. |

#### Response

`200` — Configuration information and deployment status of the index.

The IndexModel describes the configuration and status of a Pinecone index.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `name` | `string` | - | The name of the index. Resource name must be 1-45 characters long, start and end with an alphanumeric character, and consist only of lower case alphanumeric characters or '-'. Required string length: 1 - 45. Example: example-index |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `dimension` | `integer` | - | The dimensions of the vectors to be inserted in the index. Required range: 1 <= x <= 20000. Example: 1536 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `metric` | `enum<string>` | `cosine` | The distance metric to be used for similarity search. You can use 'euclidean', 'cosine', or 'dotproduct'. Available options: cosine, euclidean, dotproduct |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `host` | `string` | - | The URL address where the index is hosted. Example: semantic-search-c01b5b5.svc.us-west1-gcp.pinecone.io |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `deletion_protection?` | `enum<string>` | `disabled` | Available options: disabled, enabled |

Whether [deletion protection](/guides/manage-data-manage-indexes#configure-deletion-protection) is enabled/disabled for the index.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `tags?` | `object` | - | Custom user tags added to an index. Keys must be 80 characters or less. Values must be 120 characters or less. Keys must be alphanumeric, '', or '-'. Values must be alphanumeric, ';', '@', '', '-', '.', '+', or ' '. To unset a key, set the value to be an empty string. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `spec` | `object` | - |  |

:::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `pod?` | `object` | - | Configuration needed to deploy a pod-based index. |

::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `environment` | `string` | - | The environment where the index is hosted. Example: us-east1-gcp |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `replicas?` | `integer` | `1` | The number of replicas. Replicas duplicate your index. They provide higher availability and throughput. Replicas can be scaled up or down as your needs change. Required range: 1 <= x |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `shards?` | `integer` | `1` | The number of shards. Shards split your data across multiple pods so you can fit more data into an index. Required range: 1 <= x |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `pod_type` | `string` | `p1.x1` | The type of pod to use. One of s1, p1, or p2 appended with . and one of x1, x2, x4, or x8. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `pods?` | `integer` | `1` | The number of pods to be used in the index. This should be equal to shards x replicas.' Required range: 1 <= x. Example: 1 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `metadata_config?` | `object` | - | Configuration for the behavior of Pinecone's internal metadata index. By default, all metadata is indexed; when metadata_config is present, only specified metadata fields are indexed. These configurations are only valid for use with pod-based indexes. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `indexed?` | `string[]` | - | By default, all metadata is indexed; to change this behavior, use this property to specify an array of metadata fields that should be indexed. |
:::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `source_collection?` | `string` | - | The name of the collection to be used as the source for the index. Example: movie-embeddings |
::::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `serverless?` | `object` | - | Configuration needed to deploy a serverless index. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `cloud` | `enum<string>` | - | The public cloud where you would like your index hosted. Available options: gcp, aws, azure. Example: aws |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `region` | `string` | - | The region where you would like your index to be created. Example: us-east-1 |
:::
:::::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `status` | `object` | - |  |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `ready` | `boolean` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `state` | `enum<string>` | - | Available options: Initializing, InitializationFailed, ScalingUp, ScalingDown, ScalingUpPodSize, ScalingDownPodSize, Terminating, Ready |
:::

## Related pages

- [Account management](./account-management-index.md)
- [Admin](./admin-2-index.md)
- [Admin](./admin-index.md)
- [APIs](./apis-index.md)
- [Architecture](./architecture-index.md)
- [Bring Your Own Cloud](./bring-your-own-cloud-index.md)
- [Build an assistant](./build-an-assistant-index.md)
- [Build an integration](./build-an-integration-index.md)
- [Changelog](./changelog-index.md)
- [Changelog](../changelog.md)

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