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Search with a vector

Search a namespace using a query vector. It retrieves the ids of the most similar items in a namespace, along with their similarity scores.

For guidance, examples, and limits, see Search.

curl
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
INDEX_HOST="INDEX_HOST"

curl "https://$INDEX_HOST/query" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \
  -d '{
    "namespace": "example-namespace",
    "vector": [0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3],
    "filter": {"genre": {"$eq": "documentary"}},
    "topK": 3,
    "includeValues": true
  }'

POST /query

200
{
  "results": [
    {
      "matches": [
        null
      ],
      "namespace": "example-namespace"
    }
  ],
  "matches": [
    {
      "id": "example-vector-1",
      "score": 0.08,
      "values": [
        0.1,
        0.2,
        0.3,
        0.4,
        0.5,
        0.6,
        0.7,
        0.8
      ],
      "sparseValues": {
        "indices": [
          1,
          312,
          822,
          14,
          980
        ],
        "values": [
          0.1,
          0.2,
          0.3,
          0.4,
          0.5
        ]
      },
      "metadata": {
        "genre": "documentary",
        "year": 2019
      }
    }
  ],
  "namespace": "<string>",
  "usage": {
    "readUnits": 5,
    "egressBytes": 1024
  }
}
400
{
  "code": 123,
  "message": "<string>",
  "details": [
    {
      "typeUrl": "<string>",
      "value": "<string>"
    }
  ]
}
4XX
{
  "code": 123,
  "message": "<string>",
  "details": [
    {
      "typeUrl": "<string>",
      "value": "<string>"
    }
  ]
}
5XX
{
  "code": 123,
  "message": "<string>",
  "details": [
    {
      "typeUrl": "<string>",
      "value": "<string>"
    }
  ]
}

Authorizations

Section titled “Authorizations”
Api-Keystringrequired

An API Key is required to call Pinecone APIs. Get yours from the console.

Headers

Section titled “Headers”
X-Pinecone-Api-Versionstringrequired

Required date-based version header

Typestring
Default2026-07

Body

Section titled “Body”
namespace?string

The namespace to query.

Example: example-namespace

Typestring
topKintegerrequired

The number of results to return for each query.

Required range: 1 <= x <= 10000. Example: 10

Typeinteger
filter?object

The filter to apply. You can use vector metadata to limit your search. See Understanding metadata.

includeValues?boolean

Indicates whether vector values are included in the response. For on-demand indexes, setting this to true may increase latency, especially with higher topK values, because vector values are retrieved from object storage. Unless you need vector values, set this to false for better performance.

Example: true

Typeboolean
Defaultfalse
includeMetadata?boolean

Indicates whether metadata is included in the response as well as the ids.

Example: true

Typeboolean
Defaultfalse
vector?number[]

The query vector. This should be the same length as the dimension of the index being queried. Each query request can contain only one of the parameters id or vector. Whether vector and sparseVector may be sent together depends on the index: an index that supports only a single query predicate rejects the combination.

Typenumber[]
sparseVector?object

Vector sparse data. Represented as a list of indices and a list of corresponded values, which must be with the same length.

Typeobject
Show child attributes
indicesinteger[]required

The indices of the sparse data.

Typeinteger[]
valuesnumber[]required

The corresponding values of the sparse data, which must be with the same length as the indices.

Typenumber[]
id?string

The unique ID of the vector to be used as a query vector. It is mutually exclusive with both vector forms: a request naming id may not also carry vector or sparseVector.

Required string length: 1 - 512. Example: example-vector-1

Typestring
scanFactor?number

An optimization parameter for IVF dense indexes in dedicated read node indexes. It adjusts how much of the index is scanned to find vector candidates. Range: 0.5 – 4 (default). Keep the default (4.0) for the best search results. If query latency is too high, try lowering this value incrementally (minimum 0.5) to speed up the search at the cost of slightly lower accuracy. This parameter is only supported for dedicated (DRN) dense indexes.

Required range: 0.5 <= x <= 4. Example: 2

Typenumber
maxCandidates?integer

An optimization parameter that controls the maximum number of candidate dense vectors to rerank. Reranking computes exact distances to improve recall but increases query latency. Range: top_k – 100000. Keep the default for a balance of recall and latency. Increase this value if recall is too low, or decrease it to reduce latency at the cost of accuracy. This parameter is only supported for dedicated (DRN) dense indexes.

Required range: 1 <= x <= 100000. Example: 1000

Typeinteger

Response

Section titled “Response”

200 — A successful response.

The response for the query operation. These are the matches found for a particular query vector. The matches are ordered from most similar to least similar.

results?object[]deprecated

DEPRECATED. The results of each query. The order is the same as QueryRequest.queries.

Typeobject[]
Show child attributes
matches?object[]

The matches for the vectors.

Typeobject[]
Show child attributes
idstringrequired

This is the vector's unique id.

Required string length: 1 - 512. Example: example-vector-1

Typestring
score?number

This is a measure of similarity between this vector and the query vector. The higher the score, the more they are similar.

Example: 0.08

Typenumber
values?number[]

This is the vector data, if it is requested.

Typenumber[]
sparseValues?object

Vector sparse data. Represented as a list of indices and a list of corresponded values, which must be with the same length.

Typeobject
Show child attributes
indicesinteger[]required

The indices of the sparse data.

Typeinteger[]
valuesnumber[]required

The corresponding values of the sparse data, which must be with the same length as the indices.

Typenumber[]
metadata?object

This is the metadata, if it is requested.

Typeobject
namespace?string

The namespace for the vectors.

Example: example-namespace

Typestring
matches?object[]

The matches for the vectors.

Typeobject[]
Show child attributes
idstringrequired

This is the vector's unique id.

Required string length: 1 - 512. Example: example-vector-1

Typestring
score?number

This is a measure of similarity between this vector and the query vector. The higher the score, the more they are similar.

Example: 0.08

Typenumber
values?number[]

This is the vector data, if it is requested.

Typenumber[]
sparseValues?object

Vector sparse data. Represented as a list of indices and a list of corresponded values, which must be with the same length.

Typeobject
Show child attributes
indicesinteger[]required

The indices of the sparse data.

Typeinteger[]
valuesnumber[]required

The corresponding values of the sparse data, which must be with the same length as the indices.

Typenumber[]
metadata?object

This is the metadata, if it is requested.

Typeobject
namespace?string

The namespace that served the query: the request's namespace, or the alias's target namespace when the request named a namespace alias.

Typestring
usage?object
Show child attributes
readUnits?integer

The number of read units consumed by this operation.

Example: 5

Typeinteger
egressBytes?integer

The billed egress for this response, in bytes. Measured on the encoded response payload.

Required range: 0 <= x. Example: 1024

Typeinteger
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