# Describe an index

```shell curl theme={null}
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: 2026-04" 
```

```jsonc curl theme={null}
// 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}`

:::code-group
```bash title="cURL"
curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/{index_name} \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
```

```json title="200"
{
  "name": "example-index",
  "dimension": 1536,
  "metric": "<string>",
  "host": "semantic-search-c01b5b5.svc.us-west1-gcp.pinecone.io",
  "private_host": "semantic-search-c01b5b5.svc.private.us-west1-gcp.pinecone.io",
  "deletion_protection": "<string>",
  "tags": {
    "tag0": "val0",
    "tag1": "val1"
  },
  "embed": {
    "field_map": {
      "text": "your-text-field"
    },
    "metric": "cosine",
    "model": "multilingual-e5-large",
    "read_parameters": {
      "input_type": "query",
      "truncate": "NONE"
    },
    "write_parameters": {
      "input_type": "passage"
    }
  },
  "spec": {
    "pod": {
      "environment": "us-east-1-aws",
      "metadata_config": {
        "indexed": [
          "genre",
          "title",
          "imdb_rating"
        ]
      },
      "pod_type": "p1.x1",
      "pods": 1,
      "replicas": 1,
      "shards": 1
    }
  },
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "ScalingUpPodSize"
  },
  "vector_type": "<string>"
}
```
:::

## Authorizations

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

## Path Parameters

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

## Headers

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

## Response

- `200` — Configuration information and deployment status of the index.
- `401` — Unauthorized. Possible causes: Invalid API key.
- `404` — Index not found.
- `500` — Internal server error.

## Related pages

- [List indexes](./database-2026-07-control-plane-list-indexes.md)
- [Create an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-create-index.md)
- [Create an index with integrated embedding](./database-2026-07-control-plane-create-for-model.md)
- [Describe an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-describe-index.md)
- [Delete an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-delete-index.md)
- [Configure an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-configure-index.md)
- [Get index stats](./database-2026-07-data-plane-describeindexstats.md)
- [List indexes](./database-2026-04-control-plane-list-indexes.md)
- [Create an index](./database-2026-04-control-plane-create-index.md)
- [Create an index with integrated embedding](./database-2026-04-control-plane-create-for-model.md)

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