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Create an index

To restore from a backup, set spec.serverless.source_backup_id and specify the target cloud and region. Same-cloud cross-region restore is supported when available for the backup's source region. Cross-cloud restore is not supported. For guidance and examples, see Create an index.

Cloud regions

Section titled “Cloud regions”

For serverless indexes, the cloud and region fields in spec.serverless accept the following values:

Cloud Region Supported plans Availability phase
aws us-east-1 (Virginia) Starter, Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
aws us-west-2 (Oregon) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
aws eu-west-1 (Ireland) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
aws eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
aws ap-southeast-1 (Singapore) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
gcp us-central1 (Iowa) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
gcp europe-west4 (Netherlands) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability
azure eastus2 (Virginia) Builder, Standard, Enterprise General availability

The cloud and region can't be changed after a serverless index is created.

For BYOC indexes, set spec.byoc.environment to the environment ID provisioned for your account instead. See Bring Your Own Cloud for details.

curl
# EXAMPLE REQUEST 1: Serverless index (on-demand)
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl -s "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-04" \
  -d '{
        "name": "example-serverless-index",
        "vector_type": "dense",
        "dimension": 1536,
        "metric": "cosine",
        "spec": {
            "serverless": {
                "cloud": "aws",
                "region": "us-east-1"
            }
        },
        "tags": {
            "tag0": "value0"
        },
        "deletion_protection": "disabled"
      }'

# EXAMPLE REQUEST 2: Serverless index (dedicated)
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-04" \
  -d '{
		"name": "example-serverless-dedicated-index",
		"dimension": 1536,
		"metric": "cosine",
		"deletion_protection": "enabled",
		"tags": {
			"tag0": "value0"
		},
		"vector_type": "dense",
		"spec": {
			"serverless": {
				"cloud": "aws",
				"region": "us-east-1",
				"read_capacity": {
					"mode": "Dedicated",
					"dedicated": {
						"node_type": "b1",
						"scaling": "Manual",
						"manual": {
							"shards": 2,
							"replicas": 1
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}'

# EXAMPLE REQUEST 3: BYOC index
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl -s "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-04" \
  -d '{
        "name": "example-byoc-index",
        "vector_type": "dense",
        "dimension": 1536,
        "metric": "cosine",
        "spec": {
            "byoc": {
                "environment": "aws-us-east-1-b921"
            }
        },
        "tags": {
            "tag0": "value0"
        },
        "deletion_protection": "disabled"
      }'
curl
// EXAMPLE RESPONSE 1: Serverless index (on-demand)
{
  "name": "example-serverless-ondemand-index",
  "vector_type": "dense",
  "metric": "cosine",
  "dimension": 1536,
  "status": {
    "ready": false,
    "state": "Initializing"
  },
  "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": "disabled",
  "tags": {
    "tag0": "value0"
  }
}

// EXAMPLE RESPONSE 2: Serverless index (dedicated)
{
	"name": "example-serverless-dedicated-index",
	"vector_type": "dense",
	"metric": "cosine",
	"dimension": 1536,
	"status": {
		"ready": false,
		"state": "Initializing"
	},
	"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": 2,
						"replicas": 1
					}
				},
				"status": {
					"state": "Migrating",
					"current_shards": null,
					"current_replicas": null
				}
			}
		}
	},
	"deletion_protection": "enabled",
	"tags": {
		"tag0": "value0"
	}
}

// EXAMPLE RESPONSE 3: BYOC index
{
    "name": "example-byoc-index",
    "vector_type": "dense",
    "metric": "cosine",
    "dimension": 1536,
    "status": {
        "ready": true,
        "state": "Ready"
    },
    "host": "example-byoc-index-govk0nt.svc.private.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
    "spec": {
        "byoc": {
            "environment": "aws-us-east-1-b921"
        }
    },
    "deletion_protection": "disabled",
    "tags": {
        "tag0": "value0"
    }
}

POST /indexes

Parameters

Section titled “Parameters”
  • X-Pinecone-Api-Version (header, string, required) — Required date-based version header

Request body

Section titled “Request body”
  • name (body, string, required) — 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 '-'.
  • dimension (body, integer) — The dimensions of the vectors to be inserted in the index.
  • metric (body, 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.
  • deletion_protection (body, string) — Whether deletion protection is enabled/disabled for the index. Possible values: disabled or enabled.
  • tags (body, 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.
  • spec (body, object, required) — The spec object defines how the index should be deployed. For serverless indexes, you define only the cloud and region where the index should be hosted. For pod-based indexes, you define the environment where the index should be
  • vector_type (body, string) — 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.

Responses

Section titled “Responses”
  • 201 — The index has been successfully created.
  • 400 — Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters.
  • 401 — Unauthorized. Possible causes: Invalid API key.
  • 402 — Payment required. Organization is on a paid plan and is delinquent on payment.
  • 403 — You've exceed your pod quota.
  • 404 — A resource required to create the index was not found. This includes an unknown cloud or region for serverless indexes, or a backup ID that does not exist when spec.serverless.source_backup_id is set.
  • 409 — Index of given name already exists.
  • 412 — Cross-region restore is not available for the backup's source region.
  • 422 — Unprocessable entity. The request body could not be deserialized.
  • 500 — Internal server error.
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