# Evaluate an answer

For guidance and examples, see [Evaluate answers](/guides/evaluate-answers-evaluate-answers).

:::code-group
```bash curl
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

curl https://prod-1-data.ke.pinecone.io/assistant/evaluation/metrics/alignment \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-04" \
  -d '{
    "question": "What are the capital cities of France, England and Spain?",
    "answer": "Paris is the capital city of France and Barcelona of Spain",
    "ground_truth_answer": "Paris is the capital city of France, London of England and Madrid of Spain"
}'
```
:::

`POST /evaluation/metrics/alignment`

:::code-group
```json title="200"
{
  "metrics": {
    "correctness": 123,
    "completeness": 123,
    "alignment": 123
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "evaluated_facts": [
      {
        "fact": null,
        "entailment": null
      }
    ]
  },
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 123,
    "completion_tokens": 123,
    "total_tokens": 123
  }
}
```

```json title="422"
{
  "message": "<string>"
}
```

```json title="500"
{
  "message": "<string>"
}
```
:::

#### 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` | `2026-04` | Required date-based version header |

#### Body

The request body for the alignment evaluation.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `question` | `string` | - | The question for which the answer was generated. Example: What is the capital city of Spain? |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `answer` | `string` | - | The generated answer. Example: Barcelona. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `ground_truth_answer` | `string` | - | The ground truth answer to the question. Example: Madrid. |

#### Response

`200` — The evaluation metrics and reasoning for the generated answer.

The response for the alignment evaluation.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `metrics` | `object` | - | The metrics returned for the alignment evaluation. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `correctness` | `number` | - | The precision of the generated answer. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `completeness` | `number` | - | The recall of the generated answer. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `alignment` | `number` | - | The harmonic mean of correctness and completeness. |
:::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `reasoning` | `object` | - | The reasoning behind the alignment evaluation. |

:::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `evaluated_facts` | `object[]` | - | The facts that were evaluated. |

::::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `fact` | `object` | - | A fact |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `content` | `string` | - | The content of the fact. |
:::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `entailment` | `string` | - | The entailment of a fact. |
::::
:::::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `usage` | `object` | - | Contains the token usage details for LLM interactions, including tokens used in requests (prompt_tokens), tokens used in responses (completion_tokens), and the total number of tokens (total_tokens). |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `prompt_tokens` | `integer` | - | The number of tokens used in two requests to the LLM. The first request includes the question, generated answer, and ground truth answer. The second request includes these details plus the generated facts from the first response. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `completion_tokens` | `integer` | - | The number of tokens used in two responses from the LLM. The first response contains the generated facts, and the second response contains the evaluation metrics. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `total_tokens` | `integer` | - | The total number of tokens used across both requests and responses. This value equals the sum of prompt_tokens and completion_tokens. |
:::

## 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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