# Retrieve context from an assistant

For guidance and examples, see [Retrieve context snippets](/guides/retrieve-context-snippets-retrieve-context-snippets).

:::code-group
```bash curl
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
ASSISTANT_NAME="example-assistant"

curl "https://prod-1-data.ke.pinecone.io/assistant/chat/$ASSISTANT_NAME/context" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2025-10" \
  -d '{
    "query": "Who is the CFO of Netflix?"
}'
```
:::

:::code-group
```json curl
{
    "snippets":
    [
        {
            "type":"text",
            "content":"EXHIBIT 31.3\nCERTIFICATION OF CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER\nPURSUANT TO SECTION 302 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002\nI, Spencer Neumann, certify that: ...",
            "score":0.9960699,
            "reference":
            {
                "type":"pdf",
                "file":
                {
                    "status":"Available","id":"e6034e51-0bb9-4926-84c6-70597dbd07a7",
                    "name":"Netflix-10-K-01262024.pdf", 
                    "size":1073470,
                    "metadata":null,
                    "updated_on":"2024-11-21T22:59:10.426001030Z",
                    "created_on":"2024-11-21T22:58:35.879120257Z", 
                    "percent_done":1.0,
                    "signed_url":"https://storage.googleapis.com...",
                    "error_message":null
                    },
                "pages":[78]
            }
        },
{
    "type":"text",
    "content":"EXHIBIT 32.1\n..."
...
```
:::

`POST /chat/{assistant_name}/context`

#### Authorizations

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

#### Headers

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `X-Pinecone-Api-Version` | `string` | `2025-10` | Required date-based version header |

#### Path Parameters

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

#### Body

The desired configuration to retrieve context from an assistant.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `query?` | `string` | - | The query that is used to generate the context. Exactly one of query or messages should be provided. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `filter?` | `object` | - | Optionally filter which documents can be retrieved using the following metadata fields. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `messages?` | `object[]` | - | The list of messages to use for generating the context. Exactly one of query or messages should be provided. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `role?` | `string` | - | Role of the message such as 'user' or 'assistant' |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `content?` | `string` | - | Content of the message |
:::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `top_k?` | `integer` | - | The maximum number of context snippets to return. Default is 16. Maximum is 64. Example: 20 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `snippet_size?` | `integer` | - | The maximum context snippet size. Default is 2048 tokens. Minimum is 512 tokens. Maximum is 8192 tokens. Example: 4096 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `multimodal?` | `boolean` | `true` | Whether or not to retrieve image-related context snippets. If false, only text snippets are returned. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `include_binary_content?` | `boolean` | `true` | If image-related context snippets are returned, this field determines whether or not they should include base64 image data. If false, only the image captions are returned. Only available when multimodal=true. |

#### Response

`200` — Context retrieval process successful.

The response format containing the context from an assistant.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `id?` | `string` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `snippets` | `object[]` | - |  |

:::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `type` | `string` | - | The type of context snippet. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `content` | `string` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `score` | `number` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `reference` | `object` | - | Represents a reference to a part of a text document. |

::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `type` | `string` | - | The type of reference. Always 'text'. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `file` | `object` | - | The response format for a successful file upload request. |

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

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `id` | `string` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `metadata?` | `object \| null` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `created_on?` | `string` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `updated_on?` | `string` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `status?` | `string` | - | The current state of the uploaded file. Possible values: - Processing: File is being processed (parsed, chunked, embedded) - Available: Processing completed successfully; file is ready for use - Deleting: Deletion has been initiated but not yet completed - ProcessingFailed: Processing failed with an error Note: Once a file is deleted, the API returns 404 Not Found instead of a file object. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `percent_done?` | `number \| null` | - | The percentage of the file that has been processed |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `signed_url?` | `string \| null` | - | Example: https://storage.googleapis.com/bucket/file.pdf?... |

A [signed URL](https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/access-control/signed-urls) that provides temporary, read-only access to the underlying file. Anyone with the link can access the file, so treat it as sensitive data. Expires after a short time.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `error_message?` | `string \| null` | - | A message describing any error during file processing. Provided only if an error occurs. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `multimodal?` | `boolean` | - | Indicates whether the file was processed as multimodal. |
:::
::::
:::::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `usage` | `object` | - | Describes the usage of a chat completion. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `prompt_tokens?` | `integer` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `completion_tokens?` | `integer` | - |  |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `total_tokens?` | `integer` | - |  |
:::

## 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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