> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pinecone.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Create a collection
> Create a Pinecone collection.
Serverless indexes do not support collections.
```shell curl theme={null}
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl -s "https://api.pinecone.io/collections" \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
-H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-04" \
-d '{
"name": "example-collection",
"source": "docs-example"
}'
```
```json curl theme={null}
{
"name": "example-collection",
"status": "Initializing",
"environment": "us-east-1-aws",
"dimension": 1536
}
```
## OpenAPI
````yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pinecone-io/pinecone-api/refs/heads/main/2026-04/db_control_2026-04.oas.yaml post /collections
openapi: 3.0.3
info:
title: Pinecone Control Plane API
description: >-
Pinecone is a vector database that makes it easy to search and retrieve
billions of high-dimensional vectors.
contact:
name: Pinecone Support
url: https://support.pinecone.io
email: support@pinecone.io
license:
name: Apache 2.0
url: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
version: 2026-04
servers:
- url: https://api.pinecone.io
description: Production API endpoints
security:
- ApiKeyAuth: []
tags:
- name: Manage Indexes
description: Actions that manage indexes
externalDocs:
description: More Pinecone.io API docs
url: https://docs.pinecone.io/introduction
paths:
/collections:
post:
tags:
- Manage Indexes
summary: Create a collection
description: |
Create a Pinecone collection.
Serverless indexes do not support collections.
operationId: create_collection
parameters:
- in: header
name: X-Pinecone-Api-Version
description: Required date-based version header
required: true
schema:
default: 2026-04
type: string
style: simple
requestBody:
description: The desired configuration for the collection.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/CreateCollectionRequest'
examples:
creating-collection:
summary: Creating a collection
value:
name: example-collection
source: example-source-index
required: true
responses:
'201':
description: The collection has been successfully created.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/CollectionModel'
'400':
description: Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
index-metric-validation-error:
summary: Validation error
value:
error:
code: INVALID_ARGUMENT
message: >-
Bad request. The request body included invalid request
parameters.
status: 400
'401':
description: 'Unauthorized. Possible causes: Invalid API key.'
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
unauthorized:
summary: Unauthorized
value:
error:
code: UNAUTHENTICATED
message: Invalid API key.
status: 401
'402':
description: >-
Payment required. Organization is on a paid plan and is delinquent
on payment.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
payment-required:
summary: Payment required
value:
error:
code: PAYMENT_REQUIRED
message: >-
Request failed. Pay all past due invoices to lift
restrictions on your account.
status: 402
'403':
description: You've exceed your collections quota.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
unauthorized:
summary: Forbidden
value:
error:
code: FORBIDDEN
message: >-
Collection exceeds quota. Maximum allowed on your
account is 1. Currently have 1.
status: 403
'409':
description: Collection of given name already exists.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
collection-name-already-exists:
summary: Collection name needs to be unique.
value:
error:
code: ALREADY_EXISTS
message: Resource already exists.
status: 409
'422':
description: Unprocessable entity. The request body could not be deserialized.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
missing-field:
summary: Unprocessable entity
value:
error:
code: UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY
message: >-
Failed to deserialize the JSON body into the target
type: missing field `metric` at line 1 column 16
status: 422
'500':
description: Internal server error.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
internal-server-error:
summary: Internal server error
value:
error:
code: UNKNOWN
message: Internal server error
status: 500
components:
schemas:
CreateCollectionRequest:
description: The configuration needed to create a Pinecone collection.
type: object
properties:
name:
description: >
The name of the collection to be created. Resource name must be 1-45
characters long, start and end with an alphanumeric character, and
consist only of lower case alphanumeric characters or '-'.
type: string
minLength: 1
maxLength: 45
source:
example: example-source-index
description: The name of the index to be used as the source for the collection.
type: string
required:
- name
- source
CollectionModel:
description: >-
The CollectionModel describes the configuration and status of a Pinecone
collection.
type: object
properties:
name:
example: example-collection
description: The name of the collection.
type: string
size:
example: 10000000
description: The size of the collection in bytes.
type: integer
format: int64
status:
example: Initializing
description: |-
The status of the collection.
Possible values: `Initializing`, `Ready`, or `Terminating`.
x-enum:
- Initializing
- Ready
- Terminating
type: string
dimension:
example: 1536
description: >-
The dimension of the vectors stored in each record held in the
collection.
type: integer
format: int32
minimum: 1
maximum: 20000
vector_count:
example: 120000
description: The number of records stored in the collection.
type: integer
format: int32
environment:
example: us-east1-gcp
description: The environment where the collection is hosted.
type: string
required:
- name
- status
- environment
ErrorResponse:
example:
error:
code: QUOTA_EXCEEDED
message: >-
The index exceeds the project quota of 5 pods by 2 pods. Upgrade
your account or change the project settings to increase the quota.
status: 429
description: The response shape used for all error responses.
type: object
properties:
status:
example: 500
description: The HTTP status code of the error.
type: integer
error:
example:
code: INVALID_ARGUMENT
message: >-
Index name must contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or
hyphens, and must not begin or end with a hyphen.
description: Detailed information about the error that occurred.
type: object
properties:
code:
description: >-
The error code.
Possible values: `OK`, `UNKNOWN`, `INVALID_ARGUMENT`,
`DEADLINE_EXCEEDED`, `QUOTA_EXCEEDED`, `NOT_FOUND`,
`ALREADY_EXISTS`, `PERMISSION_DENIED`, `UNAUTHENTICATED`,
`RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED`, `FAILED_PRECONDITION`, `ABORTED`,
`OUT_OF_RANGE`, `UNIMPLEMENTED`, `INTERNAL`, `UNAVAILABLE`,
`DATA_LOSS`, `FORBIDDEN`, `UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY`, or
`PAYMENT_REQUIRED`.
x-enum:
- OK
- UNKNOWN
- INVALID_ARGUMENT
- DEADLINE_EXCEEDED
- QUOTA_EXCEEDED
- NOT_FOUND
- ALREADY_EXISTS
- PERMISSION_DENIED
- UNAUTHENTICATED
- RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
- FAILED_PRECONDITION
- ABORTED
- OUT_OF_RANGE
- UNIMPLEMENTED
- INTERNAL
- UNAVAILABLE
- DATA_LOSS
- FORBIDDEN
- UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY
- PAYMENT_REQUIRED
type: string
message:
example: >-
Index name must contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters
or hyphens, and must not begin or end with a hyphen.
description: A human-readable description of the error
type: string
details:
description: >-
Additional information about the error. This field is not
guaranteed to be present.
type: object
required:
- code
- message
required:
- status
- error
securitySchemes:
ApiKeyAuth:
type: apiKey
in: header
name: Api-Key
description: >-
An API Key is required to call Pinecone APIs. Get yours from the
[console](https://app.pinecone.io/).
````