**The index schema cannot be modified after creation.** Field types, dimensions, metrics, and text-analysis settings are permanent. Choose your schema carefully before creating an index. To create an index from a backup, use [Create index from backup](/guides/database-2026-07-control-plane-create-index-from-backup). For guidance and examples, see [Create an index](/guides/index-data-create-an-index). Creates a new schema-defined index. The schema declares each field and its type — dense vector, sparse vector, or [full-text search](/guides/index-data-search-full-text-search). The index initializes asynchronously; poll [`GET /indexes/{index_name}`](/guides/database-2026-07-control-plane-describe-index) until `status.ready: true` (and, for `Dedicated` read capacity, `read_capacity.status.state: "Ready"`) before performing data plane operations. :::callout{intent="note"} To create a classic vector index (read and written through the Vectors API), use the reserved `_values` (dense) and/or `_sparse_values` (sparse) schema fields. These replace the top-level `dimension`, `metric`, and `vector_type` of earlier API versions, and are REST-only for now. ::: :::callout{intent="note"} Document schemas do not support `semantic_text` fields. To combine semantic ranking with full-text search, declare a `dense_vector` field and provide vector values when you upsert documents. For integrated embedding indexes that use the Records API, see [Create an index](/guides/index-data-create-an-index). ::: ## Cloud regions For managed (serverless) indexes, the `cloud` and `region` fields in `deployment` accept the following values: | Cloud | Region | [Supported plans](https://www.pinecone.io/pricing/) | [Availability phase](/guides/changelog-feature-availability) | | ------- | ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | `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. :::callout{intent="note"} On the Starter plan, you can create serverless indexes in the `us-east-1` region of AWS only. To create indexes in other regions, [upgrade to the Builder, Standard, or Enterprise plan](/guides/admin-assistant-upgrade-billing-plan). ::: For BYOC indexes, set `deployment.environment` to the environment ID provisioned for your account instead. See [Bring Your Own Cloud](/guides/move-to-production-bring-your-own-cloud) for details. ```python Python theme={null} # pip install --upgrade pinecone import os from pinecone import Pinecone, SchemaBuilder pc = Pinecone(api_key=os.environ["PINECONE_API_KEY"]) schema = ( SchemaBuilder() .add_string_field(name="title", full_text_search={}) .add_string_field(name="body", full_text_search={"language": "en", "stemming": True, "stop_words": True}) .build() ) index_model = pc.indexes.create( name="articles", schema=schema, read_capacity={"mode": "OnDemand"}, ) host = index_model.host ``` ```shell curl theme={null} PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY" # EXAMPLE REQUEST 1: On-demand read capacity (default) curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \ -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \ -d '{ "name": "articles", "deployment": { "deployment_type": "managed", "cloud": "aws", "region": "us-east-1" }, "schema": { "fields": { "title": { "type": "string", "full_text_search": {} }, "body": { "type": "string", "full_text_search": {} } } }, "read_capacity": { "mode": "OnDemand" }, "deletion_protection": "disabled" }' # EXAMPLE REQUEST 2: Dedicated read capacity curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \ -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \ -d '{ "name": "articles-dedicated", "deployment": { "deployment_type": "managed", "cloud": "aws", "region": "us-east-1" }, "schema": { "fields": { "content": { "type": "string", "full_text_search": {} } } }, "read_capacity": { "mode": "Dedicated", "dedicated": { "node_type": "b1", "scaling": "Manual", "manual": { "shards": 1, "replicas": 1 } } }, "deletion_protection": "disabled" }' # EXAMPLE REQUEST 3: Multi-field schema (text + dense + sparse ranking fields) curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \ -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \ -d '{ "name": "articles-multifield", "deployment": { "deployment_type": "managed", "cloud": "aws", "region": "us-east-1" }, "schema": { "fields": { "title": { "type": "string", "full_text_search": {} }, "body": { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": true, "stop_words": true } }, "embedding": { "type": "dense_vector", "dimension": 1536, "metric": "cosine" }, "sparse_embedding": { "type": "sparse_vector" } } } }' # EXAMPLE REQUEST 4: Classic vector index — reserved `_values` field, served by the Vectors API. curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \ -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \ -d '{ "name": "classic-index", "schema": { "fields": { "_values": { "type": "dense_vector", "dimension": 1536, "metric": "cosine" } } } }' # EXAMPLE REQUEST 5: Bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) deployment. # BYOC indexes require Dedicated read capacity — OnDemand is rejected. curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \ -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \ -d '{ "name": "byoc-index", "deployment": { "deployment_type": "byoc", "environment": "aws-us-east-1-b921" }, "read_capacity": { "mode": "Dedicated", "dedicated": { "node_type": "b1", "scaling": "Manual", "manual": { "shards": 1, "replicas": 1 } } }, "schema": { "fields": { "embedding": { "type": "dense_vector", "dimension": 1536, "metric": "cosine" } } } }' ``` :::callout{intent="note"} Responses show each `full_text_search` field's resolved analyzer config: `language`, `stemming`, and `stop_words` reflect your request settings or the defaults applied at index creation. ::: `POST /indexes` :::code-group ```bash title="cURL" curl --request POST \ --url https://api.pinecone.io/indexes \ --header 'Authorization: Bearer ' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --data '{ "name": "example-index", "deployment": { "cloud": "aws", "deployment_type": "managed", "region": "us-east-1" }, "schema": { "fields": { "body": { "full_text_search": { "language": "en" }, "type": "string" }, "embedding": { "dimension": 1536, "metric": "cosine", "type": "dense_vector" } } }, "cmek_id": "arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:123456789012:key/mrk-abc123", "read_capacity": { "mode": "OnDemand" }, "tags": { "tag0": "val0", "tag1": "val1" }, "deletion_protection": "" }' ``` ```json title="201" { "deletion_protection": "disabled", "deployment": { "cloud": "aws", "deployment_type": "managed", "region": "us-east-1" }, "host": "my-index-abc123.svc.pinecone.io", "name": "my-index", "read_capacity": { "mode": "OnDemand", "status": { "state": "Ready" } }, "schema": { "fields": { "embedding": { "dimension": 1536, "metric": "cosine", "type": "dense_vector" }, "title": { "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false }, "type": "string" } } }, "status": { "ready": true, "state": "Ready" } } ``` ::: ## Authorizations - `Authorization` (header, string, required) — Bearer authentication header of the form `Bearer `. ## Headers - `X-Pinecone-Api-Version` (header, string, required) — Required date-based version header ## Body - `name` (body, string) — The name of the index. Must be unique within the project, start and end with an alphanumeric character, and contain only lower case alphanumeric characters or '-'. Generated automatically if not provided. - `deployment` (body, object) — The deployment configuration for index creation. The `deployment_type` field selects the infrastructure model. Defaults to `managed` (serverless) in `us-east-1` on `aws` if omitted. - `managed`: Serverless infrastructure managed by Pinecone, including full-text search indexes. - `byoc`: Bring-your-own-compute. - `schema` (body, object, required) — The schema to use when creating a Pinecone index. Defines the fields the index searches over: dense vector, sparse vector, and full-text search fields. At least one of `dense_vector`, `sparse_vector`, or a `string` field with `full_text_search` must be present; an empty `fields` map is rejected. At most one `dense_vector` and one `sparse_vector` field, and at most 100 `full_text_search` fields. Me - `cmek_id` (body, string) — The ID of a customer-managed encryption key (CMEK) to use for this index. Requires CMEK to be enabled for your organization. Encrypted indexes cannot have `full_text_search` fields: a request that sets `cmek_id` and declares one is rejected, and a project that enforces CMEK rejects any schema with a `full_text_search` field with `412`. - `read_capacity` (body, object) — By default the index will be created with read capacity mode `OnDemand`. If you prefer to allocate dedicated read nodes for your workload, you must specify mode `Dedicated` and additional configurations for `node_type` and `scaling`. BYOC indexes do not support `OnDemand`: a `byoc` deployment must set `mode: Dedicated` explicitly, since omitting `read_capacity` defaults to `OnDemand` and is reject - `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](/guides/manage-data-manage-indexes#configure-deletion-protection) is enabled/disabled for the index. Possible values: `disabled` or `enabled`. ## Response - `201` — The index has been successfully created. - `400` — Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters. - `401` — Unauthorized. Possible causes: missing or invalid API key. - `402` — Payment required. Organization is on a paid plan and is delinquent on payment. - `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` — Unknown cloud or region when creating a serverless index. - `409` — Index of given name already exists. - `412` — The project's encryption settings do not allow this index. - `422` — Unprocessable entity. The request body could not be deserialized. - `500` — Internal server error. ## Related pages - [List indexes](./database-2026-07-control-plane-list-indexes.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) - [Describe an index](./database-2026-04-control-plane-describe-index.md) # Agent Instructions Cite this page’s canonical URL and keep its documentation version. 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