Upsert documents
Upsert documents into a namespace.
Each document must include an _id field and at least one field defined in the index schema; metadata fields may be
provided alongside them.
Any metadata field you provide that is not declared in the schema is stored on the document, returned via include_fields, and
automatically indexed for filtering.
If a document with the same _id already exists, it is completely replaced. Documents become searchable within approximately one minute. The namespace is auto-created on first upsert; use "__default__" if you don't need partitioning.
# pip install --upgrade pinecone
import os
from pinecone import Pinecone
pc = Pinecone(api_key=os.environ["PINECONE_API_KEY"])
index = pc.Index(name="articles")
NAMESPACE = "example-namespace"
docs = [
{"_id": "doc1", "title": "Machine learning in 2024", "body": "Machine learning models are revolutionizing natural language processing", "category": "technology", "year": 2024},
{"_id": "doc2", "title": "Vector databases", "body": "Vector databases enable fast similarity search across embeddings", "category": "technology", "year": 2023},
{"_id": "doc3", "title": "Quantum computing", "body": "Quantum computers leverage superposition for faster computation", "category": "science", "year": 2024},
]
index.documents.upsert(
namespace=NAMESPACE,
documents=docs,
)PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
INDEX_HOST="articles-abc123.svc.us-east-1.pinecone.io"
curl "https://$INDEX_HOST/namespaces/__default__/documents/upsert" \
-H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \
-d '{
"documents": [
{
"_id": "doc1",
"title": "Machine learning in 2024",
"body": "Machine learning models are revolutionizing natural language processing",
"category": "technology",
"year": 2024
},
{
"_id": "doc2",
"title": "Vector databases",
"body": "Vector databases enable fast similarity search across embeddings",
"category": "technology",
"year": 2023
},
{
"_id": "doc3",
"title": "Quantum computing",
"body": "Quantum computers leverage superposition for faster computation",
"category": "science",
"year": 2024
}
]
}'POST /namespaces/{namespace}/documents/upsert
{
"upserted_count": 2
}{
"error": {
"code": "INVALID_ARGUMENT",
"message": "No 'ids' or 'filter' provided in the document fetch request. Provide at least one document ID in 'ids', or a metadata filter in 'filter'."
},
"status": 400
}{
"error": {
"code": "INVALID_ARGUMENT",
"message": "No 'ids' or 'filter' provided in the document fetch request. Provide at least one document ID in 'ids', or a metadata filter in 'filter'."
},
"status": 400
}{
"error": {
"code": "INVALID_ARGUMENT",
"message": "No 'ids' or 'filter' provided in the document fetch request. Provide at least one document ID in 'ids', or a metadata filter in 'filter'."
},
"status": 400
}{
"error": {
"code": "INVALID_ARGUMENT",
"message": "No 'ids' or 'filter' provided in the document fetch request. Provide at least one document ID in 'ids', or a metadata filter in 'filter'."
},
"status": 400
}Authorizations
Section titled “Authorizations”Api-KeystringrequiredAn API Key is required to call Pinecone APIs. Get yours from the console.
Headers
Section titled “Headers”X-Pinecone-Api-VersionstringrequiredRequired date-based version header
Path Parameters
Section titled “Path Parameters”namespacestringrequiredThe namespace to upsert documents into.
documentsobject[]requiredThe list of documents to upsert into the namespace.
Show child attributes
_idstringrequiredThe unique identifier for the document.
Required string length: 1 - 512
Response
Section titled “Response”202 — The documents were successfully accepted for upsert.
The response for the upsert_documents operation.
upserted_countintegerrequiredThe number of documents successfully upserted.
Example: 2