Configure an index

Updates configuration on an existing index. You can update deletion_protection, tags, and read_capacity (for example, converting from OnDemand to Dedicated). The schema itself is immutable — to change field types or add new indexed fields, create a new index and re-upsert.

This is a partial update: only the fields you include in the request body are modified. Unspecified fields are left unchanged. To clear tags, send "tags": {}.

# pip install --upgrade pinecone
import os
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key=os.environ["PINECONE_API_KEY"])

# Enable deletion protection
pc.indexes.configure(
    name="articles",
    deletion_protection="enabled",
)

# Convert read capacity from OnDemand to Dedicated
pc.indexes.configure(
    name="articles",
    read_capacity={
        "mode": "Dedicated",
        "dedicated": {
            "node_type": "b1",
            "scaling": "Manual",
            "manual": {"shards": 1, "replicas": 1},
        },
    },
)

PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

# Enable deletion protection
curl -X PATCH "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/articles" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \
  -d '{ "deletion_protection": "enabled" }'

# Convert read capacity from OnDemand to Dedicated
curl -X PATCH "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/articles" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \
  -d '{
    "read_capacity": {
      "mode": "Dedicated",
      "dedicated": {
        "node_type": "b1",
        "scaling": "Manual",
        "manual": { "shards": 1, "replicas": 1 }
      }
    }
  }'

PATCH /indexes/{index_name}

• X-Pinecone-Api-Version (header, string, required) — Required date-based version header
• index_name (path, string, required) — The name of the index to configure.

• deployment (body, object) — Deployment update parameters for pod-based indexes. Specify replicas, pod_type, or both. Deployment type, cloud/region, and environment cannot be changed after creation. Do not include a deployment_type field; it is not accepted.
• schema (body, object) — Schema updates to apply to an existing index. Only semantic_text field parameters can be updated after index creation. The model itself cannot be changed once set; only write_parameters and read_parameters may be updated if the model stays the same.
• read_capacity (body, object) — Read capacity changes for an existing managed or BYOC index. Switch to OnDemand, or set Dedicated and change any subset of node_type, scaling, and manual replicas/shards; fields you omit keep their current value. BYOC indexes do not support OnDemand.
• tags (body, object) — Custom user tags added to an index, at most 20 per index. Keys must be 80 characters or less and alphanumeric, '_', or '-'. Values must be 120 characters or less and consist of printable ASCII characters or spaces. To unset a key, set the value to be an empty string. null in responses when the index has no tags.
• deletion_protection (body, string) — Whether deletion protection is enabled/disabled for the index. Possible values: disabled or enabled.

• 200 — The configuration change was recorded and the updated index is returned. Changes that resize the index (replicas, shards, read capacity) are applied asynchronously; poll the index status to see when they take effect.
• 400 — Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters.
• 401 — Unauthorized. Possible causes: missing or invalid API key.
• 403 — Forbidden. Possible causes: the project's index quota is exhausted, dedicated read capacity is not enabled for the organization, or (when configuring) the index's read capacity is not yet Ready.
• 404 — Index not found.
• 422 — Unprocessable entity. The request body could not be deserialized.
• 500 — Internal server error.