Run a search

POST also GET /{index}/_search
POST also GET /_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.

If the Elasticsearch security features are enabled, you must have the read index privilege for the target data stream, index, or alias. For cross-cluster search, refer to the documentation about configuring CCS privileges. To search a point in time (PIT) for an alias, you must have the read index privilege for the alias's data streams or indices.

Search slicing

When paging through a large number of documents, it can be helpful to split the search into multiple slices to consume them independently with the slice and pit properties. By default the splitting is done first on the shards, then locally on each shard.

For instance if the number of shards is equal to 2 and you request 4 slices, the slices 0 and 2 are assigned to the first shard and the slices 1 and 3 are assigned to the second shard.

IMPORTANT: The same point-in-time ID should be used for all slices. If different PIT IDs are used, slices can overlap and miss documents. This situation can occur because, by default, the splitting criterion is based on Lucene document IDs, which are not stable across changes to the index.

Required authorization

Index privileges: read

About adding remote clusters

Path Parameters

index union IndexName | [] IndexName optional

A comma-separated list of data streams, indices, and aliases to search. It supports wildcards (*). To search all data streams and indices, omit this parameter or use * or _all.

Leave it out to use /_search.

Query Parameters

allow_no_indices boolean · default: true

A setting that does two separate checks on the index expression. If false, the request returns an error (1) if any wildcard expression (including _all and *) resolves to zero matching indices or (2) if the complete set of resolved indices, aliases or data streams is empty after all expressions are evaluated. If true, index expressions that resolve to no indices are allowed and the request returns an empty result.

allow_partial_search_results boolean · default: true

If true and there are shard request timeouts or shard failures, the request returns partial results. If false, it returns an error with no partial results.

To override the default behavior, you can set the search.default_allow_partial_results cluster setting to false.

analyzer string

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

analyze_wildcard boolean · default: false

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

batched_reduce_size number · default: 512

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

ccs_minimize_roundtrips boolean · default: true

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

default_operator enum Operator · default: or

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

Values: and AND or OR

df string

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

docvalue_fields union Fields

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

One of: Field or Field[]

expand_wildcards string ExpandWildcards · default: open

The 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. It supports comma-separated values such as open,hidden.

Supported values include:

all: Match any data stream or index, including hidden ones.
open: Match open, non-hidden indices. Also matches any non-hidden data stream.
closed: Match closed, non-hidden indices. Also matches any non-hidden data stream. Data streams cannot be closed.
hidden: Match hidden data streams and hidden indices. Must be combined with open, closed, or both.
none: Wildcard expressions are not accepted.

Values: all open closed hidden none

explain boolean · default: false

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

ignore_throttled boolean · default: true deprecated

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

ignore_unavailable boolean · default: false

If false, the request returns an error if it targets a concrete (non-wildcarded) index, alias, or data stream that is missing, closed, or otherwise unavailable. If true, unavailable concrete targets are silently ignored.

include_named_queries_score boolean · default: false

If true, the response includes the score contribution from any named queries.

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 · default: false

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

max_concurrent_shard_requests number · default: 5

The number of concurrent shard requests per node that the search runs 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.

preference string

The 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. If suitable shards exist on more than one selected node, use shards on those nodes using the default method. 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. If not, select shards using the default method.
_shards:<shard>,<shard> to run the search only on the specified shards. You can combine this value with other preference values. However, the _shards value must come first. For example: _shards:2,3|_local.
<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.

pre_filter_shard_size number

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.

request_cache boolean

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

routing union Routing

A custom value that is used to route operations to a specific shard. Not allowed when index.slice.enabled is true for the target index; use _slice instead.

One of: string or string[]

scroll string Duration

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

search_type enum SearchType

Indicates how distributed term frequencies are calculated for relevance scoring.

Supported values include:

query_then_fetch: Documents are scored using local term and document frequencies for the shard. This is usually faster but less accurate.
dfs_query_then_fetch: Documents are scored using global term and document frequencies across all shards. This is usually slower but more accurate.

Values: query_then_fetch dfs_query_then_fetch

stats union [] string | string

Specific tag of the request for logging and statistical purposes.

One of: string[] or string

stored_fields union Fields

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.

One of: Field or Field[]

suggest_field string Field

The field to use for suggestions.

suggest_mode enum SuggestMode · default: missing

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

Supported values include:

missing: Only generate suggestions for terms that are not in the shard.
popular: Only suggest terms that occur in more docs on the shard than the original term.
always: Suggest any matching suggestions based on terms in the suggest text.

Values: missing popular always

suggest_size number

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

suggest_text string

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

terminate_after number · default: 0

The 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.

IMPORTANT: 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 Duration

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. It defaults to no timeout.

track_total_hits boolean | number · default: 10000

The 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.

track_scores boolean · default: false

If true, the request calculates and returns document scores, even if the scores are not used for sorting.

typed_keys boolean · default: false

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

rest_total_hits_as_int boolean · default: false

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

version boolean · default: false

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

_source SourceConfigParam · default: true

The source fields that 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 that supports wildcard (*) patterns.

_source_excludes union Fields

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.

One of: Field or Field[]

_source_exclude_vectors boolean · default: false

Whether vectors should be excluded from _source

_source_includes union Fields

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.

One of: Field or Field[]

seq_no_primary_term boolean

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

q string

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

IMPORTANT: This parameter overrides the query parameter in the request body. If both parameters are specified, documents matching the query request body parameter are not returned.

size number · default: 10

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 · default: 0

The starting document offset, which must 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 union string | [] string

A comma-separated list of <field>:<direction> pairs.

One of: string or string[]

Request

Response

application/json

Examples

Run POST /my-index-000001/_search?from=40&size=20 to run a search.

Request Console 1 / 8 languages

Console Kibana Dev Tools

POST /my-index-000001/_search?from=40&size=20
{
  "query": {
    "term": {
      "user.id": "kimchy"
    }
  }
}

JavaScript Elasticsearch JavaScript Client

const response = await client.search({
  index: "my-index-000001",
  from: 40,
  size: 20,
  query: {
    term: {
      "user.id": "kimchy",
    },
  },
});

Python Elasticsearch Python Client

resp = client.search(
    index="my-index-000001",
    from_="40",
    size="20",
    query={
        "term": {
            "user.id": "kimchy"
        }
    },
)

curl Shell

curl -X POST "$ELASTICSEARCH_URL/my-index-000001/_search?from=40&size=20" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey $ELASTIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": {
      "term": {
        "user.id": "kimchy"
      }
    }
  }'

Java Elasticsearch Java Client

client.search(s -> s
    .from(40)
    .index("my-index-000001")
    .query(q -> q
        .term(t -> t
            .field("user.id")
            .value(FieldValue.of("kimchy"))
        )
    )
    .size(20)
,Void.class);

C# Elasticsearch .NET Client

var response = await client
    .SearchAsync<MyDocument>(d1 => d1
        .Indices(new[] { "my-index-000001" })
        .Query(d2 => d2
            .Term(d3 => d3
                .Field(x => x.User.Id)
                .Value("kimchy")
            )
        )
    );

PHP Elasticsearch PHP Client

$resp = $client->search([
    "index" => "my-index-000001",
    "from" => "40",
    "size" => "20",
    "body" => [
        "query" => [
            "term" => [
                "user.id" => "kimchy",
            ],
        ],
    ],
]);

Ruby Elasticsearch Ruby Client

response = client.search(
  index: "my-index-000001",
  from: "40",
  size: "20",
  body: {
    "query": {
      "term": {
        "user.id": "kimchy"
      }
    }
  }
)

Response

{
  "took": 5,
  "timed_out": false,
  "_shards": {
    "total": 1,
    "successful": 1,
    "skipped": 0,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "hits": {
    "total": {
      "value": 20,
      "relation": "eq"
    },
    "max_score": 1.3862942,
    "hits": [
      {
        "_index": "my-index-000001",
        "_id": "0",
        "_score": 1.3862942,
        "_source": {
          "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T14:12:12",
          "http": {
            "request": {
              "method": "get"
            },
            "response": {
              "status_code": 200,
              "bytes": 1070000
            },
            "version": "1.1"
          },
          "source": {
            "ip": "127.0.0.1"
          },
          "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
          "user": {
            "id": "kimchy"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Run POST /_search to run a point in time search. The id parameter tells Elasticsearch to run the request using contexts from this open point in time. The keep_alive parameter tells Elasticsearch how long it should extend the time to live of the point in time.

Request Console 1 / 2 languages

Console Kibana Dev Tools

POST /_search
{
    "size": 100,  
    "query": {
        "match" : {
            "title" : "elasticsearch"
        }
    },
    "pit": {
      "id":  "46ToAwMDaWR5BXV1aWQyKwZub2RlXzMAAAAAAAAAACoBYwADaWR4BXV1aWQxAgZub2RlXzEAAAAAAAAAAAEBYQADaWR5BXV1aWQyKgZub2RlXzIAAAAAAAAAAAwBYgACBXV1aWQyAAAFdXVpZDEAAQltYXRjaF9hbGw_gAAAAA==", 
      "keep_alive": "1m"  
    }
}

curl Shell

curl -X POST "$ELASTICSEARCH_URL/_search" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey $ELASTIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "size": 100,  
    "query": {
        "match" : {
            "title" : "elasticsearch"
        }
    },
    "pit": {
      "id":  "46ToAwMDaWR5BXV1aWQyKwZub2RlXzMAAAAAAAAAACoBYwADaWR4BXV1aWQxAgZub2RlXzEAAAAAAAAAAAEBYQADaWR5BXV1aWQyKgZub2RlXzIAAAAAAAAAAAwBYgACBXV1aWQyAAAFdXVpZDEAAQltYXRjaF9hbGw_gAAAAA==", 
      "keep_alive": "1m"  
    }
}'

Response

{
  "took": 5,
  "timed_out": false,
  "_shards": {
    "total": 1,
    "successful": 1,
    "skipped": 0,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "hits": {
    "total": {
      "value": 20,
      "relation": "eq"
    },
    "max_score": 1.3862942,
    "hits": [
      {
        "_index": "my-index-000001",
        "_id": "0",
        "_score": 1.3862942,
        "_source": {
          "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T14:12:12",
          "http": {
            "request": {
              "method": "get"
            },
            "response": {
              "status_code": 200,
              "bytes": 1070000
            },
            "version": "1.1"
          },
          "source": {
            "ip": "127.0.0.1"
          },
          "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
          "user": {
            "id": "kimchy"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

When paging through a large number of documents, it can be helpful to split the search into multiple slices to consume them independently. The result from running the first GET /_search request returns documents belonging to the first slice (id: 0). If you run a second request with id set to 1', it returns documents in the second slice. Since the maximum number of slices is set to 2`, the union of the results is equivalent to the results of a point-in-time search without slicing.

Request Console 1 / 2 languages

Console Kibana Dev Tools

POST /_search
{
  "slice": {
    "id": 0,                      
    "max": 2                      
  },
  "query": {
    "match": {
      "message": "foo"
    }
  },
  "pit": {
    "id": "46ToAwMDaWR5BXV1aWQyKwZub2RlXzMAAAAAAAAAACoBYwADaWR4BXV1aWQxAgZub2RlXzEAAAAAAAAAAAEBYQADaWR5BXV1aWQyKgZub2RlXzIAAAAAAAAAAAwBYgACBXV1aWQyAAAFdXVpZDEAAQltYXRjaF9hbGw_gAAAAA=="
  }
}

curl Shell

curl -X POST "$ELASTICSEARCH_URL/_search" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey $ELASTIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "slice": {
    "id": 0,                      
    "max": 2                      
  },
  "query": {
    "match": {
      "message": "foo"
    }
  },
  "pit": {
    "id": "46ToAwMDaWR5BXV1aWQyKwZub2RlXzMAAAAAAAAAACoBYwADaWR4BXV1aWQxAgZub2RlXzEAAAAAAAAAAAEBYQADaWR5BXV1aWQyKgZub2RlXzIAAAAAAAAAAAwBYgACBXV1aWQyAAAFdXVpZDEAAQltYXRjaF9hbGw_gAAAAA=="
  }
}'

Response

{
  "took": 5,
  "timed_out": false,
  "_shards": {
    "total": 1,
    "successful": 1,
    "skipped": 0,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "hits": {
    "total": {
      "value": 20,
      "relation": "eq"
    },
    "max_score": 1.3862942,
    "hits": [
      {
        "_index": "my-index-000001",
        "_id": "0",
        "_score": 1.3862942,
        "_source": {
          "@timestamp": "2099-11-15T14:12:12",
          "http": {
            "request": {
              "method": "get"
            },
            "response": {
              "status_code": 200,
              "bytes": 1070000
            },
            "version": "1.1"
          },
          "source": {
            "ip": "127.0.0.1"
          },
          "message": "GET /search HTTP/1.1 200 1070000",
          "user": {
            "id": "kimchy"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}