This guide shows you how to set up and use Pinecone Assistant, a service that allows you to upload documents, ask questions, and receive responses that reference your documents.
To get started in your browser, use the Assistant Quickstart colab notebook.

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1. Install an SDK

The Pinecone Python SDK and Node.js SDK provide convenient programmatic access to the Assistant API. 
pip install pinecone
pip install pinecone-plugin-assistant

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2. Get an API key

You need an API key to make calls to your assistant. Create a new API key in the Pinecone console, or use the widget below to generate a key. If you don’t have a Pinecone account, the widget will sign you up for the free Starter plan.
Your generated API key: 
"{{YOUR_API_KEY}}"

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3. Create an assistant

Create an assistant, as in the following example: 
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

assistant = pc.assistant.create_assistant(
    assistant_name="example-assistant", 
    instructions="Use American English for spelling and grammar.", # Description or directive for the assistant to apply to all responses.
    region="us", # Region to deploy assistant. Options: "us" (default) or "eu".
    timeout=30 # Maximum seconds to wait for assistant status to become "Ready" before timing out.
)

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4. Upload a file to the assistant

With Pinecone Assistant, you can upload documents, ask questions, and receive responses that reference your documents. This is known as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). For this quickstart, download a sample 10-k filing file to your local device. Next, upload the file to your assistant: 
from pinecone import Pinecone
pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

# Get the assistant.
assistant = pc.assistant.Assistant(
    assistant_name="example-assistant", 
)

# Upload a file.
response = assistant.upload_file(
    file_path="/path/to/file/Netflix-10-K-01262024.pdf",
    metadata={"company": "netflix", "document_type": "form 10k"},
    timeout=None
)

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5. Chat with the assistant

With the sample file uploaded, you can now chat with the assistant. Ask the assistant questions about your document. It returns either a JSON object or a text stream. The following example requests a default response to the message, “Who is the CFO of Netflix?”: 
from pinecone import Pinecone
from pinecone_plugins.assistant.models.chat import Message

pc = Pinecone(api_key='YOUR_API_KEY')
assistant = pc.assistant.Assistant(assistant_name="example-assistant")

msg = Message(role="user", content="Who is the CFO of Netflix?")
resp = assistant.chat(messages=[msg])

print(resp)
The example above returns a response like the following: 
{
    'id': '0000000000000000163008a05b317b7b', 
    'model': 'gpt-4o-2024-05-13', 
    'usage': {
        'prompt_tokens': 9259, 
        'completion_tokens': 30, 
        'total_tokens': 9289
        }, 
        'message': {
            'content': 'The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Netflix is Spencer Neumann.', 
            'role': '"assistant"'
            }, 
            'finish_reason': 'stop', 
            'citations': [
                {
                    'position': 63, 
                    'references': [
                        {
                            'pages': [78, 72, 79], 
                            'file': {
                                'name': 'Netflix-10-K-01262024.pdf', 
                                'id': '76a11dd1...', 
                                'metadata': {
                                    'company': 'netflix', 
                                    'document_type': 'form 10k'
                                    }, 
                                    'created_on': '2024-12-06T01:29:07.369208590Z', 
                                    'updated_on': '2024-12-06T01:29:50.923493799Z', 
                                    'status': 'Available', 
                                    'percent_done': 1.0, 
                                    'signed_url': 'https://storage.googleapis.com/...', 
                                    "error_message": null, 
                                    'size': 1073470.0
                                }
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                ]
            }
signed_url provides temporary, read-only access to the relevant file. Anyone with the link can access the file, so treat it as sensitive data. Expires in one hour.

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6. Clean up

When you no longer need the example-assistant, delete the assistant:
Deleting an assistant also deletes all files uploaded to the assistant.
from pinecone import Pinecone
pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

pc.assistant.delete_assistant(
    assistant_name="example-assistant", 
)

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Next steps