Run a search

POST /_search

Get search hits that match the query defined in the request. You can provide search queries using the q query string parameter or the request body. If both are specified, only the query parameter is used.

Query parameters

  • If false, the request returns an error if any wildcard expression, index alias, or _all value targets only missing or closed indices. This behavior applies even if the request targets other open indices. For example, a request targeting foo*,bar* returns an error if an index starts with foo but no index starts with bar.

  • If true, returns partial results if there are shard request timeouts or shard failures. If false, returns an error with no partial results.

  • analyzer string

    Analyzer to use for the query string. This parameter can only be used when the q query string parameter is specified.

  • If true, wildcard and prefix queries are analyzed. This parameter can only be used when the q query string parameter is specified.

  • The number of shard results that should be reduced at once on the coordinating node. This value should be used as a protection mechanism to reduce the memory overhead per search request if the potential number of shards in the request can be large.

  • If true, network round-trips between the coordinating node and the remote clusters are minimized when executing cross-cluster search (CCS) requests.

  • The default operator for query string query: AND or OR. This parameter can only be used when the q query string parameter is specified.

    Values are and, AND, or, or OR.

  • df string

    Field to use as default where no field prefix is given in the query string. This parameter can only be used when the q query string parameter is specified.

  • docvalue_fields string | array[string]

    A comma-separated list of fields to return as the docvalue representation for each hit.

  • expand_wildcards string | array[string]

    Type of index that wildcard patterns can match. If the request can target data streams, this argument determines whether wildcard expressions match hidden data streams. Supports comma-separated values, such as open,hidden.

  • explain boolean

    If true, returns detailed information about score computation as part of a hit.

  • If true, concrete, expanded or aliased indices will be ignored when frozen.

  • If false, the request returns an error if it targets a missing or closed index.

  • Indicates whether hit.matched_queries should be rendered as a map that includes the name of the matched query associated with its score (true) or as an array containing the name of the matched queries (false) This functionality reruns each named query on every hit in a search response. Typically, this adds a small overhead to a request. However, using computationally expensive named queries on a large number of hits may add significant overhead.

  • lenient boolean

    If true, format-based query failures (such as providing text to a numeric field) in the query string will be ignored. This parameter can only be used when the q query string parameter is specified.

  • Defines the number of concurrent shard requests per node this search executes concurrently. This value should be used to limit the impact of the search on the cluster in order to limit the number of concurrent shard requests.

  • Nodes and shards used for the search. By default, Elasticsearch selects from eligible nodes and shards using adaptive replica selection, accounting for allocation awareness. Valid values are: _only_local to run the search only on shards on the local node; _local to, if possible, run the search on shards on the local node, or if not, select shards using the default method; _only_nodes:<node-id>,<node-id> to run the search on only the specified nodes IDs, where, if suitable shards exist on more than one selected node, use shards on those nodes using the default method, or if none of the specified nodes are available, select shards from any available node using the default method; _prefer_nodes:<node-id>,<node-id> to if possible, run the search on the specified nodes IDs, or if not, select shards using the default method; _shards:<shard>,<shard> to run the search only on the specified shards; <custom-string> (any string that does not start with _) to route searches with the same <custom-string> to the same shards in the same order.

  • Defines a threshold that enforces a pre-filter roundtrip to prefilter search shards based on query rewriting if the number of shards the search request expands to exceeds the threshold. This filter roundtrip can limit the number of shards significantly if for instance a shard can not match any documents based on its rewrite method (if date filters are mandatory to match but the shard bounds and the query are disjoint). When unspecified, the pre-filter phase is executed if any of these conditions is met: the request targets more than 128 shards; the request targets one or more read-only index; the primary sort of the query targets an indexed field.

  • If true, the caching of search results is enabled for requests where size is 0. Defaults to index level settings.

  • routing string

    Custom value used to route operations to a specific shard.

  • scroll string

    Period to retain the search context for scrolling. See Scroll search results. By default, this value cannot exceed 1d (24 hours). You can change this limit using the search.max_keep_alive cluster-level setting.

  • How distributed term frequencies are calculated for relevance scoring.

    Values are query_then_fetch or dfs_query_then_fetch.

  • stats array[string]

    Specific tag of the request for logging and statistical purposes.

  • stored_fields string | array[string]

    A comma-separated list of stored fields to return as part of a hit. If no fields are specified, no stored fields are included in the response. If this field is specified, the _source parameter defaults to false. You can pass _source: true to return both source fields and stored fields in the search response.

  • Specifies which field to use for suggestions.

  • Specifies the suggest mode. This parameter can only be used when the suggest_field and suggest_text query string parameters are specified.

    Values are missing, popular, or always.

  • Number of suggestions to return. This parameter can only be used when the suggest_field and suggest_text query string parameters are specified.

  • The source text for which the suggestions should be returned. This parameter can only be used when the suggest_field and suggest_text query string parameters are specified.

  • Maximum number of documents to collect for each shard. If a query reaches this limit, Elasticsearch terminates the query early. Elasticsearch collects documents before sorting. Use with caution. Elasticsearch applies this parameter to each shard handling the request. When possible, let Elasticsearch perform early termination automatically. Avoid specifying this parameter for requests that target data streams with backing indices across multiple data tiers. If set to 0 (default), the query does not terminate early.

  • timeout string

    Specifies the period of time to wait for a response from each shard. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error.

  • track_total_hits boolean | number

    Number of hits matching the query to count accurately. If true, the exact number of hits is returned at the cost of some performance. If false, the response does not include the total number of hits matching the query.

  • If true, calculate and return document scores, even if the scores are not used for sorting.

  • typed_keys boolean

    If true, aggregation and suggester names are be prefixed by their respective types in the response.

  • Indicates whether hits.total should be rendered as an integer or an object in the rest search response.

  • version boolean

    If true, returns document version as part of a hit.

  • _source boolean | string | array[string]

    Indicates which source fields are returned for matching documents. These fields are returned in the hits._source property of the search response. Valid values are: true to return the entire document source; false to not return the document source; <string> to return the source fields that are specified as a comma-separated list (supports wildcard (*) patterns).

  • _source_excludes string | array[string]

    A comma-separated list of source fields to exclude from the response. You can also use this parameter to exclude fields from the subset specified in _source_includes query parameter. If the _source parameter is false, this parameter is ignored.

  • _source_includes string | array[string]

    A comma-separated list of source fields to include in the response. If this parameter is specified, only these source fields are returned. You can exclude fields from this subset using the _source_excludes query parameter. If the _source parameter is false, this parameter is ignored.

  • If true, returns sequence number and primary term of the last modification of each hit.

  • q string

    Query in the Lucene query string syntax using query parameter search. Query parameter searches do not support the full Elasticsearch Query DSL but are handy for testing.

  • size number

    Defines the number of hits to return. By default, you cannot page through more than 10,000 hits using the from and size parameters. To page through more hits, use the search_after parameter.

  • from number

    Starting document offset. Needs to be non-negative. By default, you cannot page through more than 10,000 hits using the from and size parameters. To page through more hits, use the search_after parameter.

  • sort string | array[string]

    A comma-separated list of : pairs.

  • Should this request force synthetic _source? Use this to test if the mapping supports synthetic _source and to get a sense of the worst case performance. Fetches with this enabled will be slower the enabling synthetic source natively in the index.

application/json

Body

  • Defines the aggregations that are run as part of the search request.

  • collapse object

    Additional properties are allowed.

  • explain boolean

    If true, returns detailed information about score computation as part of a hit.

  • ext object

    Configuration of search extensions defined by Elasticsearch plugins.

    Hide ext attribute Show ext attribute object
    • * object Additional properties

      Additional properties are allowed.

  • from number

    Starting document offset. Needs to be non-negative. By default, you cannot page through more than 10,000 hits using the from and size parameters. To page through more hits, use the search_after parameter.

  • Additional properties are allowed.

    Hide highlight attributes Show highlight attributes object
    • A string that contains each boundary character.

    • How far to scan for boundary characters.

    • Values are chars, sentence, or word.

    • Controls which locale is used to search for sentence and word boundaries. This parameter takes a form of a language tag, for example: "en-US", "fr-FR", "ja-JP".

    • force_source boolean Deprecated
    • Values are simple or span.

    • The size of the highlighted fragment in characters.

    • Additional properties are allowed.

    • If set to a non-negative value, highlighting stops at this defined maximum limit. The rest of the text is not processed, thus not highlighted and no error is returned The max_analyzed_offset query setting does not override the index.highlight.max_analyzed_offset setting, which prevails when it’s set to lower value than the query setting.

    • The amount of text you want to return from the beginning of the field if there are no matching fragments to highlight.

    • The maximum number of fragments to return. If the number of fragments is set to 0, no fragments are returned. Instead, the entire field contents are highlighted and returned. This can be handy when you need to highlight short texts such as a title or address, but fragmentation is not required. If number_of_fragments is 0, fragment_size is ignored.

    • options object
      Hide options attribute Show options attribute object
      • * object Additional properties

        Additional properties are allowed.

    • order string

      Value is score.

    • Controls the number of matching phrases in a document that are considered. Prevents the fvh highlighter from analyzing too many phrases and consuming too much memory. When using matched_fields, phrase_limit phrases per matched field are considered. Raising the limit increases query time and consumes more memory. Only supported by the fvh highlighter.

    • post_tags array[string]

      Use in conjunction with pre_tags to define the HTML tags to use for the highlighted text. By default, highlighted text is wrapped in <em> and </em> tags.

    • pre_tags array[string]

      Use in conjunction with post_tags to define the HTML tags to use for the highlighted text. By default, highlighted text is wrapped in <em> and </em> tags.

    • By default, only fields that contains a query match are highlighted. Set to false to highlight all fields.

    • Value is styled.

    • encoder string

      Values are default or html.

    • fields object Required
  • track_total_hits boolean | number

    Number of hits matching the query to count accurately. If true, the exact number of hits is returned at the cost of some performance. If false, the response does not include the total number of hits matching the query. Defaults to 10,000 hits.

  • indices_boost array[object]

    Boosts the _score of documents from specified indices.

    Hide indices_boost attribute Show indices_boost attribute object
    • * number Additional properties
  • docvalue_fields array[object]

    Array of wildcard (*) patterns. The request returns doc values for field names matching these patterns in the hits.fields property of the response.

    Hide docvalue_fields attributes Show docvalue_fields attributes object
    • field string Required

      Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

    • format string

      Format in which the values are returned.

  • knn object | array[object]

    Defines the approximate kNN search to run.

    One of:
    Hide attributes Show attributes object
    • field string Required

      Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

    • query_vector array[number]
    • Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide query_vector_builder attribute Show query_vector_builder attribute object
    • k number

      The final number of nearest neighbors to return as top hits

    • The number of nearest neighbor candidates to consider per shard

    • boost number

      Boost value to apply to kNN scores

    • filter object | array[object]

      Filters for the kNN search query

    • The minimum similarity for a vector to be considered a match

    • Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide inner_hits attributes Show inner_hits attributes object
      • name string
      • size number

        The maximum number of hits to return per inner_hits.

      • from number

        Inner hit starting document offset.

      • collapse object

        Additional properties are allowed.

      • docvalue_fields array[object]
        Hide docvalue_fields attributes Show docvalue_fields attributes object
        • field string Required

          Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

        • format string

          Format in which the values are returned.

      • explain boolean
      • Additional properties are allowed.

        Hide highlight attributes Show highlight attributes object
        • A string that contains each boundary character.

        • How far to scan for boundary characters.

        • Values are chars, sentence, or word.

        • Controls which locale is used to search for sentence and word boundaries. This parameter takes a form of a language tag, for example: "en-US", "fr-FR", "ja-JP".

        • force_source boolean Deprecated
        • Values are simple or span.

        • The size of the highlighted fragment in characters.

        • Additional properties are allowed.

        • If set to a non-negative value, highlighting stops at this defined maximum limit. The rest of the text is not processed, thus not highlighted and no error is returned The max_analyzed_offset query setting does not override the index.highlight.max_analyzed_offset setting, which prevails when it’s set to lower value than the query setting.

        • The amount of text you want to return from the beginning of the field if there are no matching fragments to highlight.

        • The maximum number of fragments to return. If the number of fragments is set to 0, no fragments are returned. Instead, the entire field contents are highlighted and returned. This can be handy when you need to highlight short texts such as a title or address, but fragmentation is not required. If number_of_fragments is 0, fragment_size is ignored.

        • options object
        • order string

          Value is score.

        • Controls the number of matching phrases in a document that are considered. Prevents the fvh highlighter from analyzing too many phrases and consuming too much memory. When using matched_fields, phrase_limit phrases per matched field are considered. Raising the limit increases query time and consumes more memory. Only supported by the fvh highlighter.

        • post_tags array[string]

          Use in conjunction with pre_tags to define the HTML tags to use for the highlighted text. By default, highlighted text is wrapped in <em> and </em> tags.

        • pre_tags array[string]

          Use in conjunction with post_tags to define the HTML tags to use for the highlighted text. By default, highlighted text is wrapped in <em> and </em> tags.

        • By default, only fields that contains a query match are highlighted. Set to false to highlight all fields.

        • Value is styled.

        • encoder string

          Values are default or html.

        • fields object Required
      • Hide script_fields attribute Show script_fields attribute object
        • * object Additional properties

          Additional properties are allowed.

          Hide * attributes Show * attributes object
      • fields string | array[string]
      • sort string | object | array[string | object]

        One of:

        Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

        Additional properties are allowed.

      • _source boolean | object

        Defines how to fetch a source. Fetching can be disabled entirely, or the source can be filtered.

        One of:
      • stored_fields string | array[string]
      • version boolean
  • rank object

    Additional properties are allowed.

    Hide rank attribute Show rank attribute object
    • rrf object

      Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide rrf attributes Show rrf attributes object
      • How much influence documents in individual result sets per query have over the final ranked result set

      • Size of the individual result sets per query

  • Minimum _score for matching documents. Documents with a lower _score are not included in the search results.

  • Additional properties are allowed.

  • profile boolean

    Set to true to return detailed timing information about the execution of individual components in a search request. NOTE: This is a debugging tool and adds significant overhead to search execution.

  • query object

    Additional properties are allowed.

  • rescore object | array[object]

    Can be used to improve precision by reordering just the top (for example 100 - 500) documents returned by the query and post_filter phases.

    One of:
    Hide attributes Show attributes object
    • query object

      Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide query attributes Show query attributes object
    • Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide learning_to_rank attributes Show learning_to_rank attributes object
      • model_id string Required

        The unique identifier of the trained model uploaded to Elasticsearch

      • params object

        Named parameters to be passed to the query templates used for feature

        Hide params attribute Show params attribute object
        • * object Additional properties

          Additional properties are allowed.

  • Additional properties are allowed.

    Hide retriever attributes Show retriever attributes object
  • Retrieve a script evaluation (based on different fields) for each hit.

    Hide script_fields attribute Show script_fields attribute object
    • * object Additional properties

      Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide * attributes Show * attributes object
      • script object Required

        Additional properties are allowed.

        Hide script attributes Show script attributes object
        • source string

          The script source.

        • id string
        • params object

          Specifies any named parameters that are passed into the script as variables. Use parameters instead of hard-coded values to decrease compile time.

          Hide params attribute Show params attribute object
          • * object Additional properties

            Additional properties are allowed.

        • lang string

          Any of:

          Values are painless, expression, mustache, or java.

        • options object
          Hide options attribute Show options attribute object
          • * string Additional properties
  • search_after array[number | string | boolean | null | object]
  • size number

    The number of hits to return. By default, you cannot page through more than 10,000 hits using the from and size parameters. To page through more hits, use the search_after parameter.

  • slice object

    Additional properties are allowed.

    Hide slice attributes Show slice attributes object
    • field string

      Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

    • id string Required
    • max number Required
  • sort string | object | array[string | object]

    One of:

    Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

    One of:

    Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

  • _source boolean | object

    Defines how to fetch a source. Fetching can be disabled entirely, or the source can be filtered.

    One of:
  • fields array[object]

    Array of wildcard (*) patterns. The request returns values for field names matching these patterns in the hits.fields property of the response.

    Hide fields attributes Show fields attributes object
    • field string Required

      Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

    • format string

      Format in which the values are returned.

  • suggest object

    Additional properties are allowed.

    Hide suggest attribute Show suggest attribute object
    • text string

      Global suggest text, to avoid repetition when the same text is used in several suggesters

  • Maximum number of documents to collect for each shard. If a query reaches this limit, Elasticsearch terminates the query early. Elasticsearch collects documents before sorting. Use with caution. Elasticsearch applies this parameter to each shard handling the request. When possible, let Elasticsearch perform early termination automatically. Avoid specifying this parameter for requests that target data streams with backing indices across multiple data tiers. If set to 0 (default), the query does not terminate early.

  • timeout string

    Specifies the period of time to wait for a response from each shard. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. Defaults to no timeout.

  • If true, calculate and return document scores, even if the scores are not used for sorting.

  • version boolean

    If true, returns document version as part of a hit.

  • If true, returns sequence number and primary term of the last modification of each hit.

  • stored_fields string | array[string]
  • pit object

    Additional properties are allowed.

    Hide pit attributes Show pit attributes object
    • id string Required
    • A duration. Units can be nanos, micros, ms (milliseconds), s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours) and d (days). Also accepts "0" without a unit and "-1" to indicate an unspecified value.

  • Hide runtime_mappings attribute Show runtime_mappings attribute object
    • * object Additional properties

      Additional properties are allowed.

      Hide * attributes Show * attributes object
      • fields object

        For type composite

        Hide fields attribute Show fields attribute object
        • * object Additional properties

          Additional properties are allowed.

          Hide * attribute Show * attribute object
          • type string Required

            Values are boolean, composite, date, double, geo_point, ip, keyword, long, or lookup.

      • fetch_fields array[object]

        For type lookup

        Hide fetch_fields attributes Show fetch_fields attributes object
        • field string Required

          Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

        • format string
      • format string

        A custom format for date type runtime fields.

      • Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

      • Path to field or array of paths. Some API's support wildcards in the path to select multiple fields.

      • script object

        Additional properties are allowed.

        Hide script attributes Show script attributes object
        • source string

          The script source.

        • id string
        • params object

          Specifies any named parameters that are passed into the script as variables. Use parameters instead of hard-coded values to decrease compile time.

          Hide params attribute Show params attribute object
          • * object Additional properties

            Additional properties are allowed.

        • lang string

          Any of:

          Values are painless, expression, mustache, or java.

        • options object
          Hide options attribute Show options attribute object
          • * string Additional properties
      • type string Required

        Values are boolean, composite, date, double, geo_point, ip, keyword, long, or lookup.

  • stats array[string]

    Stats groups to associate with the search. Each group maintains a statistics aggregation for its associated searches. You can retrieve these stats using the indices stats API.

Responses