elasticsearch/docs/reference/docs/index_.asciidoc

[[docs-index_]]
=== Index API
++++
<titleabbrev>Index</titleabbrev>
++++

IMPORTANT: See <<removal-of-types>>.

Adds a JSON document to the specified data stream or index and makes
it searchable. If the target is an index and the document already exists,
the request updates the document and increments its version.

NOTE: You cannot use the index API to send update requests for existing
documents to a data stream. See <<update-docs-in-a-data-stream-by-query>>
and <<update-delete-docs-in-a-backing-index>>.

[[docs-index-api-request]]
==== {api-request-title}

`PUT /<target>/_doc/<_id>`

`POST /<target>/_doc/`

`PUT /<target>/_create/<_id>`

`POST /<target>/_create/<_id>`

IMPORTANT: You cannot add new documents to a data stream using the
`PUT /<target>/_doc/<_id>` request format. To specify a document ID, use the
`PUT /<target>/_create/<_id>` format instead. See
<<add-documents-to-a-data-stream>>.

[[docs-index-api-prereqs]]
==== {api-prereq-title}

* If the {es} {security-features} are enabled, you must have the following
<<privileges-list-indices,index privileges>> for the target data stream, index,
or index alias:

** To add or overwrite a document using the `PUT /<target>/_doc/<_id>` request
format, you must have the `create`, `index`, or `write` index privilege.

** To add a document using the `POST /<target>/_doc/`,
`PUT /<target>/_create/<_id>`, or `POST /<target>/_create/<_id>` request
formats, you must have the `create_doc`, `create`, `index`, or `write` index
privilege.

** To automatically create a data stream or index with an index API request, you
must have the `auto_configure`, `create_index`, or `manage` index privilege.

* Automatic data stream creation requires a matching index template with data
stream enabled. See <<set-up-a-data-stream>>.

[[docs-index-api-path-params]]
==== {api-path-parms-title}

`<target>`::
(Required, string) Name of the data stream or index to target.
+
If the target doesn't exist and matches the name or wildcard (`*`) pattern of an
<<create-index-template,index template with a `data_stream`
definition>>, this request creates the data stream. See
<<set-up-a-data-stream>>.
+
If the target doesn't exist and doesn't match a data stream template,
this request creates the index.
+
You can check for existing targets using the resolve index API.

`<_id>`::
(Optional, string) Unique identifier for the document.
+
--
This parameter is required for the following request formats:

* `PUT /<target>/_doc/<_id>`
* `PUT /<target>/_create/<_id>`
* `POST /<target>/_create/<_id>`

To automatically generate a document ID, use the `POST /<target>/_doc/` request
format and omit this parameter.
--



[[docs-index-api-query-params]]
==== {api-query-parms-title}

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=if_seq_no]

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=if_primary_term]

[[docs-index-api-op_type]]
`op_type`::
(Optional, enum) Set to `create` to only index the document
if it does not already exist (_put if absent_). If a document with the specified
`_id` already exists, the indexing operation will fail. Same as using the
`<index>/_create` endpoint. Valid values: `index`, `create`.
If document id is specified, it defaults to `index`. Otherwise, it defaults to `create`.
+
NOTE: If the request targets a data stream, an `op_type` of `create` is
required. See <<add-documents-to-a-data-stream>>.

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=pipeline]

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=refresh]

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=routing]

`timeout`::
+
--
(Optional, <<time-units, time units>>)
Period the request waits for the following operations:

* <<index-creation,Automatic index creation>>
* <<dynamic-mapping,Dynamic mapping>> updates
* <<index-wait-for-active-shards,Waiting for active shards>>

Defaults to `1m` (one minute). This guarantees {es} waits for at least the
timeout before failing. The actual wait time could be longer, particularly when
multiple waits occur.
--

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=doc-version]

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=version_type]

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=wait_for_active_shards]

include::{es-repo-dir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=require-alias]

[[docs-index-api-request-body]]
==== {api-request-body-title}

`<field>`::
(Required, string) Request body contains the JSON source for the document
data.

[[docs-index-api-response-body]]
==== {api-response-body-title}

`_shards`::
Provides information about the replication process of the index operation.

`_shards.total`::
Indicates how many shard copies (primary and replica shards) the index operation
should be executed on.

`_shards.successful`::
Indicates the number of shard copies the index operation succeeded on.
When the index operation is successful, `successful` is at least 1.
+
NOTE: Replica shards might not all be started when an indexing operation
returns successfully--by default, only the primary is required. Set
`wait_for_active_shards` to change this default behavior. See
<<index-wait-for-active-shards>>.

`_shards.failed`::
An array that contains replication-related errors in the case an index operation
failed on a replica shard. 0 indicates there were no failures.

`_index`::
The name of the index the document was added to.

`_type`::
The document type. {es} indices now support a single document type, `_doc`.

`_id`::
The unique identifier for the added document.

`_version`::
The document version. Incremented each time the document is updated.

`_seq_no`::
The sequence number assigned to the document for the indexing operation.
Sequence numbers are used to ensure an older version of a document
doesn’t overwrite a newer version. See <<optimistic-concurrency-control-index>>.

`_primary_term`::
The primary term assigned to the document for the indexing operation.
See <<optimistic-concurrency-control-index>>.

`result`::
The result of the indexing operation, `created` or `updated`.

[[docs-index-api-desc]]
==== {api-description-title}

You can index a new JSON document with the `_doc` or `_create` resource. Using
`_create` guarantees that the document is only indexed if it does not already
exist. To update an existing document, you must use the `_doc` resource.

[[index-creation]]
===== Automatically create data streams and indices

If request's target doesn't exist and matches an
<<create-index-template,index template with a `data_stream`
definition>>, the index operation automatically creates the data stream. See
<<set-up-a-data-stream>>.

If the target doesn't exist and doesn't match a data stream template,
the operation automatically creates the index and applies any matching
<<index-templates,index templates>>.

NOTE: {es} includes several built-in index templates. To avoid naming collisions
with these templates, see <<avoid-index-pattern-collisions>>.

If no mapping exists, the index operation
creates a dynamic mapping. By default, new fields and objects are
automatically added to the mapping if needed. For more information about field
mapping, see <<mapping,mapping>> and the <<indices-put-mapping,update mapping>> API.

Automatic index creation is controlled by the `action.auto_create_index`
setting. This setting defaults to `true`, which allows any index to be created
automatically. You can modify this setting to explicitly allow or block
automatic creation of indices that match specified patterns, or set it to
`false` to disable automatic index creation entirely. Specify a
comma-separated list of patterns you want to allow, or prefix each pattern with
`+` or `-` to indicate whether it should be allowed or blocked. When a list is
specified, the default behaviour is to disallow.

IMPORTANT: The `action.auto_create_index` setting only affects the automatic
creation of indices. It does not affect the creation of data streams.

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "action.auto_create_index": "my-index-000001,index10,-index1*,+ind*" <1>
  }
}

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "action.auto_create_index": "false" <2>
  }
}

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "action.auto_create_index": "true" <3>
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

<1> Allow auto-creation of indices called `my-index-000001` or `index10`, block the
creation of indices that match the pattern `index1*`, and allow creation of
any other indices that match the `ind*` pattern. Patterns are matched in
the order specified.

<2> Disable automatic index creation entirely.

<3> Allow automatic creation of any index. This is the default.

[discrete]
[[operation-type]]
===== Put if absent

You can force a create operation by using the `_create` resource or
setting the `op_type` parameter to _create_. In this case,
the index operation fails if a document with the specified ID
already exists in the index.

[discrete]
[[create-document-ids-automatically]]
===== Create document IDs automatically

When using the `POST /<target>/_doc/` request format, the `op_type` is
automatically set to `create` and the index operation generates a unique ID for
the document.

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
POST my-index-000001/_doc/
{
  "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T13:12:00",
  "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
  "user": {
    "id": "kimchy"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

The API returns the following result:

[source,console-result]
--------------------------------------------------
{
  "_shards": {
    "total": 2,
    "failed": 0,
    "successful": 2
  },
  "_index": "my-index-000001",
  "_id": "W0tpsmIBdwcYyG50zbta",
  "_version": 1,
  "_seq_no": 0,
  "_primary_term": 1,
  "result": "created"
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TESTRESPONSE[s/W0tpsmIBdwcYyG50zbta/$body._id/ s/"successful": 2/"successful": 1/]

[discrete]
[[optimistic-concurrency-control-index]]
===== Optimistic concurrency control

Index operations can be made conditional and only be performed if the last
modification to the document was assigned the sequence number and primary
term specified by the `if_seq_no` and `if_primary_term` parameters. If a
mismatch is detected, the operation will result in a `VersionConflictException`
and a status code of 409. See <<optimistic-concurrency-control>> for more details.

[discrete]
[[index-routing]]
===== Routing

By default, shard placement -- or `routing` -- is controlled by using a
hash of the document's id value. For more explicit control, the value
fed into the hash function used by the router can be directly specified
on a per-operation basis using the `routing` parameter. For example:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
POST my-index-000001/_doc?routing=kimchy
{
  "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T13:12:00",
  "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
  "user": {
    "id": "kimchy"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

In this example, the document is routed to a shard based on
the `routing` parameter provided: "kimchy".

When setting up explicit mapping, you can also use the `_routing` field
to direct the index operation to extract the routing value from the
document itself. This does come at the (very minimal) cost of an
additional document parsing pass. If the `_routing` mapping is defined
and set to be `required`, the index operation will fail if no routing
value is provided or extracted.

NOTE: Data streams do not support custom routing unless they were created with
the <<put-index-template-api-request-body,`allow_custom_routing`>> setting
enabled in the template.

[discrete]
[[index-distributed]]
===== Distributed

The index operation is directed to the primary shard based on its route
(see the Routing section above) and performed on the actual node
containing this shard. After the primary shard completes the operation,
if needed, the update is distributed to applicable replicas.

[discrete]
[[index-wait-for-active-shards]]
===== Active shards

To improve the resiliency of writes to the system, indexing operations
can be configured to wait for a certain number of active shard copies
before proceeding with the operation. If the requisite number of active
shard copies are not available, then the write operation must wait and
retry, until either the requisite shard copies have started or a timeout
occurs. By default, write operations only wait for the primary shards
to be active before proceeding (i.e. `wait_for_active_shards=1`).
This default can be overridden in the index settings dynamically
by setting `index.write.wait_for_active_shards`. To alter this behavior
per operation, the `wait_for_active_shards` request parameter can be used.

Valid values are `all` or any positive integer up to the total number
of configured copies per shard in the index (which is `number_of_replicas+1`).
Specifying a negative value or a number greater than the number of
shard copies will throw an error.

For example, suppose we have a cluster of three nodes, `A`, `B`, and `C` and
we create an index `index` with the number of replicas set to 3 (resulting in
4 shard copies, one more copy than there are nodes). If we
attempt an indexing operation, by default the operation will only ensure
the primary copy of each shard is available before proceeding. This means
that even if `B` and `C` went down, and `A` hosted the primary shard copies,
the indexing operation would still proceed with only one copy of the data.
If `wait_for_active_shards` is set on the request to `3` (and all 3 nodes
are up), then the indexing operation will require 3 active shard copies
before proceeding, a requirement which should be met because there are 3
active nodes in the cluster, each one holding a copy of the shard. However,
if we set `wait_for_active_shards` to `all` (or to `4`, which is the same),
the indexing operation will not proceed as we do not have all 4 copies of
each shard active in the index. The operation will timeout
unless a new node is brought up in the cluster to host the fourth copy of
the shard.

It is important to note that this setting greatly reduces the chances of
the write operation not writing to the requisite number of shard copies,
but it does not completely eliminate the possibility, because this check
occurs before the write operation commences. Once the write operation
is underway, it is still possible for replication to fail on any number of
shard copies but still succeed on the primary. The `_shards` section of the
write operation's response reveals the number of shard copies on which
replication succeeded/failed.

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
  "_shards": {
    "total": 2,
    "failed": 0,
    "successful": 2
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// NOTCONSOLE

[discrete]
[[index-refresh]]
===== Refresh

Control when the changes made by this request are visible to search. See
<<docs-refresh,refresh>>.

[discrete]
[[index-noop]]
===== Noop updates

When updating a document using the index API a new version of the document is
always created even if the document hasn't changed. If this isn't acceptable
use the `_update` API with `detect_noop` set to true. This option isn't
available on the index API because the index API doesn't fetch the old source
and isn't able to compare it against the new source.

There isn't a hard and fast rule about when noop updates aren't acceptable.
It's a combination of lots of factors like how frequently your data source
sends updates that are actually noops and how many queries per second
Elasticsearch runs on the shard receiving the updates.

[discrete]
[[timeout]]
===== Timeout

The primary shard assigned to perform the index operation might not be
available when the index operation is executed. Some reasons for this
might be that the primary shard is currently recovering from a gateway
or undergoing relocation. By default, the index operation will wait on
the primary shard to become available for up to 1 minute before failing
and responding with an error. The `timeout` parameter can be used to
explicitly specify how long it waits. Here is an example of setting it
to 5 minutes:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?timeout=5m
{
  "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T13:12:00",
  "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
  "user": {
    "id": "kimchy"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

[discrete]
[[index-versioning]]
===== Versioning

Each indexed document is given a version number. By default,
internal versioning is used that starts at 1 and increments
with each update, deletes included. Optionally, the version number can be
set to an external value (for example, if maintained in a
database). To enable this functionality, `version_type` should be set to
`external`. The value provided must be a numeric, long value greater than or equal to 0,
and less than around 9.2e+18.

When using the external version type, the system checks to see if
the version number passed to the index request is greater than the
version of the currently stored document. If true, the document will be
indexed and the new version number used. If the value provided is less
than or equal to the stored document's version number, a version
conflict will occur and the index operation will fail. For example:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?version=2&version_type=external
{
  "user": {
    "id": "elkbee"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TEST[continued]

NOTE: Versioning is completely real time, and is not affected by the
near real time aspects of search operations. If no version is provided,
then the operation is executed without any version checks.

In the previous example, the operation will succeed since the supplied
version of 2 is higher than
the current document version of 1. If the document was already updated
and its version was set to 2 or higher, the indexing command will fail
and result in a conflict (409 http status code).

A nice side effect is that there is no need to maintain strict ordering
of async indexing operations executed as a result of changes to a source
database, as long as version numbers from the source database are used.
Even the simple case of updating the Elasticsearch index using data from
a database is simplified if external versioning is used, as only the
latest version will be used if the index operations arrive out of order for
whatever reason.

[discrete]
[[index-version-types]]
===== Version types

In addition to the `external` version type, Elasticsearch
also supports other types for specific use cases:

[[_version_types]]
`external` or `external_gt`:: Only index the document if the given version is strictly higher
than the version of the stored document *or* if there is no existing document. The given
version will be used as the new version and will be stored with the new document. The supplied
version must be a non-negative long number.

`external_gte`:: Only index the document if the given version is *equal* or higher
than the version of the stored document. If there is no existing document
the operation will succeed as well. The given version will be used as the new version
and will be stored with the new document. The supplied version must be a non-negative long number.

NOTE: The `external_gte` version type is meant for special use cases and
should be used with care. If used incorrectly, it can result in loss of data.
There is another option, `force`, which is deprecated because it can cause
primary and replica shards to diverge.

[[docs-index-api-example]]
==== {api-examples-title}

Insert a JSON document into the `my-index-000001` index with an `_id` of 1:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1
{
  "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T13:12:00",
  "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
  "user": {
    "id": "kimchy"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

The API returns the following result:

[source,console-result]
--------------------------------------------------
{
  "_shards": {
    "total": 2,
    "failed": 0,
    "successful": 2
  },
  "_index": "my-index-000001",
  "_id": "1",
  "_version": 1,
  "_seq_no": 0,
  "_primary_term": 1,
  "result": "created"
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TESTRESPONSE[s/"successful": 2/"successful": 1/]

Use the `_create` resource to index a document into the `my-index-000001` index if
no document with that ID exists:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_create/1
{
  "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T13:12:00",
  "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
  "user": {
    "id": "kimchy"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

Set the `op_type` parameter to _create_ to index a document into the `my-index-000001`
index if no document with that ID exists:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?op_type=create
{
  "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T13:12:00",
  "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
  "user": {
    "id": "kimchy"
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------