Bulk API

POST /_bulk

POST /<index>/_bulk

Provides a way to perform multiple index, create, delete, and update actions in a single request.

The actions are specified in the request body using a newline delimited JSON (NDJSON) structure:

action_and_meta_data\n
optional_source\n
action_and_meta_data\n
optional_source\n
....
action_and_meta_data\n
optional_source\n

The index and create actions expect a source on the next line, and have the same semantics as the op_type parameter in the standard index API: create fails if a document with the same name already exists in the index, index adds or replaces a document as necessary.

update expects that the partial doc, upsert, and script and its options are specified on the next line.

delete does not expect a source on the next line and has the same semantics as the standard delete API.

Because this format uses literal \n's as delimiters, make sure that the JSON actions and sources are not pretty printed.

If you specify an index in the request URI, it is used for any actions that don’t explicitly specify an index.

A note on the format: The idea here is to make processing of this as fast as possible. As some of the actions are redirected to other shards on other nodes, only action_meta_data is parsed on the receiving node side.

Client libraries using this protocol should try and strive to do something similar on the client side, and reduce buffering as much as possible.

There is no "correct" number of actions to perform in a single bulk request. Experiment with different settings to find the optimal size for your particular workload.

When using the HTTP API, make sure that the client does not send HTTP chunks, as this will slow things down.

Some of the officially supported clients provide helpers to assist with bulk requests and reindexing of documents from one index to another:

If you’re providing text file input to curl, you must use the --data-binary flag instead of plain -d. The latter doesn’t preserve newlines. Example:

$ cat requests
{ "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "1" } }
{ "field1" : "value1" }
$ curl -s -H "Content-Type: application/x-ndjson" -XPOST localhost:9200/_bulk --data-binary "@requests"; echo
{"took":7, "errors": false, "items":[{"index":{"_index":"test","_type":"_doc","_id":"1","_version":1,"result":"created","forced_refresh":false}}]}

Each index and delete action within a bulk API call may include the if_seq_no and if_primary_term parameters in their respective action and meta data lines. The if_seq_no and if_primary_term parameters control how operations are executed, based on the last modification to existing documents. See Optimistic concurrency control for more details.

Each bulk item can include the version value using the version field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index / delete operation based on the _version mapping. It also support the version_type (see versioning).

Each bulk item can include the routing value using the routing field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index / delete operation based on the _routing mapping.

When making bulk calls, you can set the wait_for_active_shards parameter to require a minimum number of shard copies to be active before starting to process the bulk request. See here for further details and a usage example.

Control when the changes made by this request are visible to search. See refresh.

See URL-based access control.

The request body contains a newline-delimited list of create, delete, index, and update actions and their associated source data.

POST _bulk
{ "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "1" } }
{ "field1" : "value1" }
{ "delete" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "2" } }
{ "create" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "3" } }
{ "field1" : "value3" }
{ "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_index" : "test"} }
{ "doc" : {"field2" : "value2"} }

The API returns the following result:

{
   "took": 30,
   "errors": false,
   "items": [
      {
         "index": {
            "_index": "test",
            "_type": "_doc",
            "_id": "1",
            "_version": 1,
            "result": "created",
            "_shards": {
               "total": 2,
               "successful": 1,
               "failed": 0
            },
            "status": 201,
            "_seq_no" : 0,
            "_primary_term": 1
         }
      },
      {
         "delete": {
            "_index": "test",
            "_type": "_doc",
            "_id": "2",
            "_version": 1,
            "result": "not_found",
            "_shards": {
               "total": 2,
               "successful": 1,
               "failed": 0
            },
            "status": 404,
            "_seq_no" : 1,
            "_primary_term" : 2
         }
      },
      {
         "create": {
            "_index": "test",
            "_type": "_doc",
            "_id": "3",
            "_version": 1,
            "result": "created",
            "_shards": {
               "total": 2,
               "successful": 1,
               "failed": 0
            },
            "status": 201,
            "_seq_no" : 2,
            "_primary_term" : 3
         }
      },
      {
         "update": {
            "_index": "test",
            "_type": "_doc",
            "_id": "1",
            "_version": 2,
            "result": "updated",
            "_shards": {
                "total": 2,
                "successful": 1,
                "failed": 0
            },
            "status": 200,
            "_seq_no" : 3,
            "_primary_term" : 4
         }
      }
   ]
}

When using the update action, retry_on_conflict can be used as a field in the action itself (not in the extra payload line), to specify how many times an update should be retried in the case of a version conflict.

The update action payload supports the following options: doc (partial document), upsert, doc_as_upsert, script, params (for script), lang (for script), and _source. See update documentation for details on the options. Example with update actions:

POST _bulk
{ "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_index" : "index1", "retry_on_conflict" : 3} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"} }
{ "update" : { "_id" : "0", "_index" : "index1", "retry_on_conflict" : 3} }
{ "script" : { "source": "ctx._source.counter += params.param1", "lang" : "painless", "params" : {"param1" : 1}}, "upsert" : {"counter" : 1}}
{ "update" : {"_id" : "2", "_index" : "index1", "retry_on_conflict" : 3} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "doc_as_upsert" : true }
{ "update" : {"_id" : "3", "_index" : "index1", "_source" : true} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"} }
{ "update" : {"_id" : "4", "_index" : "index1"} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "_source": true}

The following bulk API request includes operations that update non-existent documents.

POST /_bulk
{ "update": {"_id": "5", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "foo"} }
{ "update": {"_id": "6", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "foo"} }
{ "create": {"_id": "7", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "my_field": "foo" }

Because these operations cannot complete successfully, the API returns a response with an errors flag of true.

The response also includes an error object for any failed operations. The error object contains additional information about the failure, such as the error type and reason.

{
  "took": 486,
  "errors": true,
  "items": [
    {
      "update": {
        "_index": "index1",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id": "5",
        "status": 404,
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][5]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "update": {
        "_index": "index1",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id": "6",
        "status": 404,
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][6]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "create": {
        "_index": "index1",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id": "7",
        "_version": 1,
        "result": "created",
        "_shards": {
          "total": 2,
          "successful": 1,
          "failed": 0
        },
        "_seq_no": 0,
        "_primary_term": 1,
        "status": 201
      }
    }
  ]
}

To return only information about failed operations, use the filter_path query parameter with an argument of items.*.error.

POST /_bulk?filter_path=items.*.error
{ "update": {"_id": "5", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "baz"} }
{ "update": {"_id": "6", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "baz"} }
{ "update": {"_id": "7", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "baz"} }

The API returns the following result.

{
  "items": [
    {
      "update": {
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][5]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "update": {
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][6]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}