Describe an index

# pip install --upgrade pinecone
import os
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key=os.environ["PINECONE_API_KEY"])

index_model = pc.preview.indexes.describe(name="articles")
print(index_model.status, index_model.schema)

host = index_model.host

PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/articles" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-01.alpha"

// Status: 200 OK
{
  "id": "e51ea4e1-2dda-4607-94dc-9054b1fa8492",
  "name": "articles",
  "host": "articles-jweaq8m.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "deployment": {
    "deployment_type": "managed",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "environment": "aped-4627-b74a"
  },
  "schema": {
    "version": "v1",
    "fields": {
      "title":    { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false, "lowercase": true, "max_token_length": 40 } },
      "body":     { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false, "lowercase": true, "max_token_length": 40 } }
    }
  },
  "read_capacity": {
    "mode": "OnDemand",
    "status": { "state": "Ready" }
  },
  "tags": null,
  "deletion_protection": "disabled"
}

GET

indexes

{index_name}

# pip install --upgrade pinecone
import os
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key=os.environ["PINECONE_API_KEY"])

index_model = pc.preview.indexes.describe(name="articles")
print(index_model.status, index_model.schema)

host = index_model.host

PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/articles" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-01.alpha"

// Status: 200 OK
{
  "id": "e51ea4e1-2dda-4607-94dc-9054b1fa8492",
  "name": "articles",
  "host": "articles-jweaq8m.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "deployment": {
    "deployment_type": "managed",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "environment": "aped-4627-b74a"
  },
  "schema": {
    "version": "v1",
    "fields": {
      "title":    { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false, "lowercase": true, "max_token_length": 40 } },
      "body":     { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false, "lowercase": true, "max_token_length": 40 } }
    }
  },
  "read_capacity": {
    "mode": "OnDemand",
    "status": { "state": "Ready" }
  },
  "tags": null,
  "deletion_protection": "disabled"
}

Full-text search is in public preview and uses API version 2026-01.alpha. APIs may continue to evolve before general availability.

Returns detailed information about a specific schema-defined index, including its schema, status, host URL, and read capacity. Poll this endpoint after POST /indexes until status.ready: true (and, for Dedicated read capacity, read_capacity.status.state: "Ready") before performing data plane operations.

# pip install --upgrade pinecone
import os
from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key=os.environ["PINECONE_API_KEY"])

index_model = pc.preview.indexes.describe(name="articles")
print(index_model.status, index_model.schema)

host = index_model.host

PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/articles" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-01.alpha"

// Status: 200 OK
{
  "id": "e51ea4e1-2dda-4607-94dc-9054b1fa8492",
  "name": "articles",
  "host": "articles-jweaq8m.svc.aped-4627-b74a.pinecone.io",
  "status": {
    "ready": true,
    "state": "Ready"
  },
  "deployment": {
    "deployment_type": "managed",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "environment": "aped-4627-b74a"
  },
  "schema": {
    "version": "v1",
    "fields": {
      "title":    { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false, "lowercase": true, "max_token_length": 40 } },
      "body":     { "type": "string", "full_text_search": { "language": "en", "stemming": false, "stop_words": false, "lowercase": true, "max_token_length": 40 } }
    }
  },
  "read_capacity": {
    "mode": "OnDemand",
    "status": { "state": "Ready" }
  },
  "tags": null,
  "deletion_protection": "disabled"
}

Authorizations

Api-Key

string

header

required

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

Headers

X-Pinecone-Api-Version

string

default:2026-01.alpha

required

Required date-based version header

Path Parameters

index_name

string

required

The name of the index to be described.

Response

Configuration information and deployment status of the index.

The IndexModel describes the configuration and status of a Pinecone index.

name

string

required

The name of the index. Resource name must be 1-45 characters long, start and end with an alphanumeric character, and consist only of lower case alphanumeric characters or '-'.

Required string length: 1 - 45

Example:

"example-index"

host

string

required

The URL address where the index is hosted.

Example:

"semantic-search-c01b5b5.svc.us-west1-gcp.pinecone.io"

status

object

required

The current status of the index.

Show child attributes

Example:

{ "ready": true, "state": "Ready" }

deployment

Pod-based · object

required

The deployment configuration of a Pinecone index. The deployment_type field indicates which infrastructure model the index uses.

pod: Dedicated pod-based infrastructure. Suitable for workloads that

require predictable performance.
managed: Serverless infrastructure managed by Pinecone, including

full-text search indexes. Scales automatically; billed per usage.
byoc: Bring-your-own-compute. Runs in customer-managed infrastructure.

Pod-based
Serverless
BYOC

Show child attributes

Example:

{
  "deployment_type": "pod",
  "environment": "us-east1-gcp",
  "pod_type": "p1.x1",
  "replicas": 1,
  "shards": 1
}

schema

object

required

The schema of a Pinecone index. The schema defines the typed fields that documents in the index can contain, including vector fields, semantic text fields, and metadata fields.

Show child attributes

Example:

{
  "fields": {
    "embedding": {
      "dimension": 1536,
      "metric": "cosine",
      "type": "dense_vector"
    },
    "title": {
      "full_text_search": {
        "language": "en",
        "stemming": false,
        "stop_words": false
      },
      "type": "string"
    }
  }
}

deletion_protection

string

default:disabled

required

Whether deletion protection is enabled/disabled for the index. Possible values: disabled or enabled.

private_host

string

The private endpoint URL of an index.

Example:

"semantic-search-c01b5b5.svc.private.us-west1-gcp.pinecone.io"

read_capacity

On-demand · object

Response containing read capacity configuration

On-demand
Dedicated

Show child attributes

Example:

{
  "mode": "OnDemand",
  "status": { "state": "Ready" }
}

source_collection

string

The name of the collection this index was created from, if any.

Example:

"movie-embeddings"

source_backup_id

string

The ID of the backup this index was restored from, if any.

Example:

"670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000"

cmek_id

string

The ID of the customer-managed encryption key (CMEK) used to encrypt this index, if any.

Example:

"arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:123456789012:key/mrk-abc123"

APIs

Database

Inference

Admin

SDKs

CLI

Tools

Authorizations

Headers

Path Parameters

Response