Create a dedicated read nodes index

Create the index

Call Create an index. In the request body, in the spec.serverless.read_capacity object, set the following fields:

Field	Value	Notes
`mode`	`Dedicated`
`dedicated.node_type`	`b1` or `t1`	See node types
`dedicated.scaling`	`Manual`	The only supported value
`dedicated.manual.shards`	Number of shards needed	Minimum 1 shard; each shard provides 250 GB of storage
`dedicated.manual.replicas`	Number of replicas needed	Minimum 0 (this pauses the index)

To learn how to determine the number of shards and replicas your index requires, see Calculate the size of your index.

This example creates an index with two shards and one replica:

PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes" \
     -H "Accept: application/json" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
     -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2025-10" \
     -d '{
           "name": "example-dedicated-index",
           "dimension": 1024,
           "metric": "cosine",
           "deletion_protection": "enabled",
           "tags": {
             "environment": "production"
           },
           "vector_type": "dense",
           "spec": {
             "serverless": {
               "cloud": "aws",
               "region": "us-east-1",
               "read_capacity": {
                 "mode": "Dedicated",
                 "dedicated": {
                   "node_type": "b1",
                   "scaling": "Manual",
                   "manual": {
                     "shards": 2,
                     "replicas": 1
                   }
                 }
               }
             }
           }
         }'

{
  "name": "example-dedicated-index",
  "vector_type": "dense",
  "metric": "cosine",
  "dimension": 1024,
  "status": {
    "ready": false,
    "state": "Initializing"
  },
  "host": "example-dedicated-index-1c6ab6aa.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "spec": {
    "serverless": {
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "cloud": "aws",
      "read_capacity": {
        "mode": "Dedicated",
        "dedicated": {
          "node_type": "b1",
          "scaling": "Manual",
          "manual": {
            "shards": 2, // <---- desired state
            "replicas": 1
          }
        },
        "status": {
          "state": "Migrating",
          "current_shards": null, // <---- current state
          "current_replicas": null
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "deletion_protection": "enabled",
  "tags": {
    "environment": "production"
  }
}

The response includes two status fields:

Field	Description
`status.state`	Overall index status (for example, `Initializing`, `Ready`, `Terminating`)
`spec.serverless.read_capacity.status.state`	Read capacity status (`Migrating`, `Scaling`, `Ready`, `Error`)

When creating a dedicated read nodes index, status.state transitions to Ready as soon as the index is ready for reads and writes.However, spec.serverless.read_capacity.status.state remains Migrating until the index scales to its full read capacity, at which point it transitions to Ready.

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Create a dedicated read nodes index

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From scratch

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