# Retrieve context from an assistant

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

```bash curl theme={null}
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: 2026-04" \
  -d '{
    "query": "Who is the CFO of Netflix?"
}'
```

```json curl theme={null}
{
    "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",
                    "signed_url":"https://storage.googleapis.com..."
                    },
                "pages":[78]
            }
        },
{
    "type":"text",
    "content":"EXHIBIT 32.1\n..."
...
```

`POST /chat/{assistant_name}/context`

:::code-group
```bash title="cURL"
curl --request POST \
  --url https://{assistant_host}/chat/{assistant_name}/context \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
  "query": "<string>",
  "filter": {
    "genre": {
      "$ne": "documentary"
    }
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "<string>",
      "content": "<string>"
    }
  ],
  "top_k": 20,
  "snippet_size": 4096,
  "multimodal": true,
  "include_binary_content": true
}'
```

```json title="200"
{
  "id": "<string>",
  "snippets": [
    {
      "type": "<string>",
      "content": "<string>",
      "score": 123,
      "reference": null
    }
  ],
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 123,
    "completion_tokens": 123,
    "total_tokens": 123
  }
}
```
:::

## Authorizations

- `Authorization` (header, string, required) — Bearer authentication header of the form `Bearer <token>`.

## Path Parameters

- `assistant_name` (path, string, required) — The name of the assistant to be described.

## Headers

- `X-Pinecone-Api-Version` (header, string, required) — Required date-based version header

## Body

- `query` (body, string) — The query that is used to generate the context. Exactly one of query or messages should be provided.
- `filter` (body, object) — Optionally filter which documents can be retrieved using the following metadata fields.
- `messages` (body, object\[]) — The list of messages to use for generating the context. Exactly one of query or messages should be provided.
- `top_k` (body, integer) — The maximum number of context snippets to return. Default is 16. Maximum is 64.
- `snippet_size` (body, integer) — The maximum context snippet size. Default is 2048 tokens. Minimum is 512 tokens. Maximum is 8192 tokens.
- `multimodal` (body, boolean) — Whether or not to retrieve image-related context snippets. If `false`, only text snippets are returned.
- `include_binary_content` (body, boolean) — 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.
- `400` — Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters.
- `401` — Unauthorized. Possible causes: Invalid API key.
- `404` — Assistant not found.
- `500` — Internal server error.

## 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)
- [Assistants](./assistants-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)

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