Elasticsearch API

Base URL 
http://api.example.com

Elasticsearch provides REST APIs that are used by the UI components and can be called directly to configure and access Elasticsearch features.

Documentation source and versions

This documentation is derived from the main branch of the elasticsearch-specification repository. It is provided under license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. This documentation contains work-in-progress information for future Elastic Stack releases.

Last update on Apr 16, 2025.

This API is provided under license Apache 2.0.

Authentication

The API accepts 3 different authentication methods:

Api key auth (http_api_key)

Elasticsearch APIs support key-based authentication. You must create an API key and use the encoded value in the request header. For example:

curl -X GET "${ES_URL}/_cat/indices?v=true" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey ${API_KEY}"

To get API keys, use the /_security/api_key APIs.

Basic auth (http)

Basic auth tokens are constructed with the Basic keyword, followed by a space, followed by a base64-encoded string of your username:password (separated by a : colon).

Example: send a Authorization: Basic aGVsbG86aGVsbG8= HTTP header with your requests to authenticate with the API.

Bearer auth (http)

Elasticsearch APIs support the use of bearer tokens in the Authorization HTTP header to authenticate with the API. For examples, refer to Token-based authentication services

Create or update an autoscaling policy Added in 7.11.0

PUT /_autoscaling/policy/{name}
Api key auth Basic auth Bearer auth

NOTE: This feature is designed for indirect use by Elasticsearch Service, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, and Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes. Direct use is not supported.

External documentation

Path parameters

  • name string Required

    the name of the autoscaling policy

Query parameters

  • master_timeout string

    Period to wait for a connection to the master node. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error.

  • timeout string

    Period to wait for a response. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error.

application/json

Body Required

Responses

  • 200 application/json
    Hide response attribute Show response attribute object
    • acknowledged boolean Required

      For a successful response, this value is always true. On failure, an exception is returned instead.
PUT /_autoscaling/policy/{name} 
curl \
 --request PUT 'http://api.example.com/_autoscaling/policy/{name}' \
 --header "Authorization: $API_KEY" \
 --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
 --data '"{\n  \"roles\": [],\n  \"deciders\": {\n    \"fixed\": {\n    }\n  }\n}"'
Request examples 
{
  "roles": [],
  "deciders": {
    "fixed": {
    }
  }
}
The API method and path for this request: `PUT /_autoscaling/policy/my_autoscaling_policy`. It creates `my_autoscaling_policy` using the fixed autoscaling decider, applying to the set of nodes having (only) the `data_hot` role. 
{
  "roles" : [ "data_hot" ],
  "deciders": {
    "fixed": {
    }
  }
}
Response examples (200) 
{
  "acknowledged": true
}

Compact and aligned text (CAT)

The compact and aligned text (CAT) APIs aim are intended only for human consumption using the Kibana console or command line. They are not intended for use by applications. For application consumption, it's recommend to use a corresponding JSON API. All the cat commands accept a query string parameter help to see all the headers and info they provide, and the /_cat command alone lists all the available commands.

Get aliases

GET /_cat/aliases/{name}
Api key auth Basic auth Bearer auth

Get the cluster's index aliases, including filter and routing information. This API does not return data stream aliases.

IMPORTANT: CAT APIs are only intended for human consumption using the command line or the Kibana console. They are not intended for use by applications. For application consumption, use the aliases API.

Path parameters

  • name string | array[string] Required

    A comma-separated list of aliases to retrieve. Supports wildcards (*). To retrieve all aliases, omit this parameter or use * or _all.

Query parameters

  • h string | array[string]

    List of columns to appear in the response. Supports simple wildcards.

  • s string | array[string]

    List of columns that determine how the table should be sorted. Sorting defaults to ascending and can be changed by setting :asc or :desc as a suffix to the column name.

  • expand_wildcards string | array[string]

    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.

  • master_timeout string

    The period to wait for a connection to the master node. If the master node is not available before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. To indicated that the request should never timeout, you can set it to -1.

Responses

GET /_cat/aliases/{name} 
curl \
 --request GET 'http://api.example.com/_cat/aliases/{name}' \
 --header "Authorization: $API_KEY"
Response examples (200)
A successful response from `GET _cat/aliases?format=json&v=true`. This response shows that `alias2` has configured a filter and `alias3` and `alias4` have routing configurations. 
[
  {
    "alias": "alias1",
    "index": "test1",
    "filter": "-",
    "routing.index": "-",
    "routing.search": "-",
    "is_write_index": "true"
  },
  {
    "alias": "alias1",
    "index": "test1",
    "filter": "*",
    "routing.index": "-",
    "routing.search": "-",
    "is_write_index": "true"
  },
  {
    "alias": "alias3",
    "index": "test1",
    "filter": "-",
    "routing.index": "1",
    "routing.search": "1",
    "is_write_index": "true"
  },
  {
    "alias": "alias4",
    "index": "test1",
    "filter": "-",
    "routing.index": "2",
    "routing.search": "1,2",
    "is_write_index": "true"
  }
]

Get a document count

GET /_cat/count
Api key auth Basic auth Bearer auth

Get quick access to a document count for a data stream, an index, or an entire cluster. The document count only includes live documents, not deleted documents which have not yet been removed by the merge process.

IMPORTANT: CAT APIs are only intended for human consumption using the command line or Kibana console. They are not intended for use by applications. For application consumption, use the count API.

Query parameters

  • h string | array[string]

    List of columns to appear in the response. Supports simple wildcards.

  • s string | array[string]

    List of columns that determine how the table should be sorted. Sorting defaults to ascending and can be changed by setting :asc or :desc as a suffix to the column name.

Responses

  • 200 application/json
    Hide response attributes Show response attributes object

    • epoch number | string

      Some APIs will return values such as numbers also as a string (notably epoch timestamps). This behavior is used to capture this behavior while keeping the semantics of the field type.

      Depending on the target language, code generators can keep the union or remove it and leniently parse strings to the target type.

      One of:
      UnitSeconds number StringifiedEpochTimeUnitSeconds string

      Time unit for seconds

    • timestamp string

      Time of day, expressed as HH:MM:SS

    • count string

      the document count
GET /_cat/count 
curl \
 --request GET 'http://api.example.com/_cat/count' \
 --header "Authorization: $API_KEY"
Response examples (200)
A successful response from `GET /_cat/count/my-index-000001?v=true&format=json`. It retrieves the document count for the `my-index-000001` data stream or index. 
[
  {
    "epoch": "1475868259",
    "timestamp": "15:24:20",
    "count": "120"
  }
]
A successful response from `GET /_cat/count?v=true&format=json`. It retrieves the document count for all data streams and indices in the cluster. 
[
  {
    "epoch": "1475868259",
    "timestamp": "15:24:20",
    "count": "121"
  }
]