# Describe an index

:::code-group
```shell curl
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
INDEX_NAME="YOUR_INDEX_NAME"

curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/$INDEX_NAME" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2025-10" 
```
:::

:::code-group
```jsonc curl
// EXAMPLE RESPONSE 1: Serverless index (on-demand)
{
  "name": "example-serverless-ondemand-index",
  "vector_type": "dense",
  "metric": "cosine",
  "dimension": 1024,
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "host": "example-serverless-ondemand-index-bhnyigt.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "spec": {
    "serverless": {
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "cloud": "aws",
      "read_capacity": {
        "mode": "OnDemand",
        "status": {
          "state": "Ready",
          "current_shards": null,
          "current_replicas": null
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "deletion_protection": "enabled",
  "tags": {
    "tag1": "value1",
    "tag2": "value2"
  },
  "embed": {
    "model": "llama-text-embed-v2",
    "field_map": {
      "text": "text"
    },
    "dimension": 1024,
    "metric": "cosine",
    "write_parameters": {
      "dimension": 1024,
      "input_type": "passage",
      "truncate": "END"
    },
    "read_parameters": {
      "dimension": 1024,
      "input_type": "query",
      "truncate": "END"
    },
    "vector_type": "dense"
  }
}

// EXAMPLE RESPONSE 2: Serverless index (dedicated)
{
  "name": "example-serverless-dedicated-index",
  "vector_type": "dense",
  "metric": "cosine",
  "dimension": 1536,
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "host": "example-serverless-dedicated-index-bhnyigt.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "spec": {
    "serverless": {
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "cloud": "aws",
      "read_capacity": {
        "mode": "Dedicated",
        "dedicated": {
          "node_type": "b1",
          "scaling": "Manual",
          "manual": {
            "shards": 1,
            "replicas": 2
          }
        },
        "status": {
          "state": "Scaling",
          "current_shards": 1,
          "current_replicas": 1
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "deletion_protection": "enabled",
  "tags": {
    "tag0": "value0",
    "tag1": "value1"
  }
}
```
:::

`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/).

#### Headers

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

#### 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` | `string` | - | The distance metric to be used for similarity search. You can use 'euclidean', 'cosine', or 'dotproduct'. If the 'vector_type' is 'sparse', the metric must be 'dotproduct'. If the vector_type is dense, the metric defaults to 'cosine'. Possible values: cosine, euclidean, or 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `private_host?` | `string` | - | The private endpoint URL of an index. Example: semantic-search-c01b5b5.svc.private.us-west1-gcp.pinecone.io |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `deletion_protection?` | `string` | `disabled` |  |

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

| 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `embed?` | `object` | - | The embedding model and document fields mapped to embedding inputs. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `model` | `string` | - | The name of the embedding model used to create the index. Example: multilingual-e5-large |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `metric?` | `string` | - | The distance metric to be used for similarity search. You can use 'euclidean', 'cosine', or 'dotproduct'. If not specified, the metric will be defaulted according to the model. Cannot be updated once set. Possible values: cosine, euclidean, or dotproduct. |

| 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `vector_type?` | `string` | `dense` | The index vector type. You can use 'dense' or 'sparse'. If 'dense', the vector dimension must be specified. If 'sparse', the vector dimension should not be specified. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `field_map?` | `object` | - | Identifies the name of the text field from your document model that is embedded. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `read_parameters?` | `object` | - | The read parameters for the embedding model. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `write_parameters?` | `object` | - | The write parameters for the embedding model. |
:::

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

:::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `serverless` | `object` | - | Configuration of a serverless index. |

::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `cloud` | `string` | - | The public cloud where you would like your index hosted. Possible values: gcp, aws, or 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `read_capacity` | `object` | - |  |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `mode` | `string` | - | The mode of the index. Possible values: OnDemand or Dedicated. Defaults to OnDemand. If set to Dedicated, dedicated.node_type, and dedicated.scaling must be specified. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `status` | `object` | - | The current status of factors affecting the read capacity of a serverless index |
:::

| 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `schema?` | `object` | - | Schema for the behavior of Pinecone's internal metadata index. By default, all metadata is indexed; when schema is present, only fields which are present in the fields object with a filterable: true are indexed. Note that filterable: false is not currently supported. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `fields` | `object` | - | A map of metadata field names to their configuration. The field name must be a valid metadata field name. The field name must be unique. |
:::
::::
:::::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `status` | `object` | - | The current status of the index |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `ready` | `boolean` | - | Whether the index is ready for use |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `state` | `string` | - | The state of the index. Possible values: Initializing, InitializationFailed, ScalingUp, ScalingDown, ScalingUpPodSize, ScalingDownPodSize, Terminating, Ready, or Disabled. |
:::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `vector_type` | `string` | `dense` | The index vector type. You can use 'dense' or 'sparse'. If 'dense', the vector dimension must be specified. If 'sparse', the vector dimension should not be specified. |

## 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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