APIs and tools
Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Serverless
Generally available
Stack
Generally available
This page is handy list of the most important APIs and tools you need to build, test, and manage your search app built with Elasticsearch.
| Endpoint | Function |
|---|---|
_search |
Searches and aggregations written in Query DSL and retrievers syntax |
_query |
Endpoint for ES|QL queries |
_explain |
Provides detailed explanation of how a specific document matches a query with scoring breakdown |
_count |
Returns count of documents matching a query without retrieving results |
_validate/query |
Validates query syntax without executing the search |
_analyze |
Performs analysis for full-text search on a text string and returns the resulting tokens. |
| Endpoint | Function |
|---|---|
_mapping |
Retrieves or updates field mappings with options for specific field inspection |
_reindex |
Copies documents from one index to another, useful for mapping changes |
_update_by_query |
Updates documents matching a query without reindexing |
_bulk |
Performs multiple index/update/delete operations in a single request |
_refresh |
Forces a refresh to make recent operations searchable |
_ingest/pipeline |
Creates and manages document processing pipelines before indexing |
| Endpoint | Function |
|---|---|
_rank_eval |
Evaluates search quality against known relevant documents |
_settings |
Configures settings including slow logs, refresh intervals, and replicas (only index-level settings available in serverless) |
_scripts |
Creates or updates stored scripts for reuse in queries and aggregations |
Access these specialized tools in Kibana and the Serverless UI to develop, debug, and refine your search queries while monitoring their performance and efficiency.
These tools are documented in the Explore & Analyze section:
| Tool | Function |
|---|---|
| Saved queries | Save your searches and queries to reuse them later. |
| Console | Interact with the REST APIs of Elasticsearch and Kibana, including sending requests and viewing API documentation. |
| Search Profiler | Inspect and analyze your search queries. |
| Grok Debugger | Build and debug grok patterns before you use them in your data processing pipelines. |
| Painless Lab | Test and debug Painless scripts in real-time. |
The following generative AI tools are available as part of the Elasticsearch solution and serverless project type. They enable you to build AI-powered search applications on top of the core Elasticsearch features, including retrieval augmented generation (RAG) systems and agentic workflows.
Elastic Cloud Serverless projects are autoscaled environments, fully managed by Elastic and available on Elastic Cloud. Availability This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. Serverless interfaces and procedures might differ from classic Elastic Stack deployments. The Elastic Stack includes Elastic's core products such as Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Beats. Availability This functionality is generally available and ready for production usage. This functionality is in technical preview and is ready for evaluation. Use with caution in production; it is not recommended for mission-critical workloads. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features. Specific Support terms apply. Unless stated otherwise on the page, this functionality is available when your Elastic Stack is deployed on Elastic Cloud Hosted, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, and self-managed environments. This documentation corresponds to the latest patch available for each minor version. If you're not using the latest patch, check the release notes for changes.
Serverless
Generally available
Stack
GA
9.3+
…
Generally available since 9.3
Preview in 9.2
Agent Builder enables you to create AI agents that can interact with your Elasticsearch data, run queries, and provide intelligent responses. It provides a complete framework for building conversational AI experiences on top of your search infrastructure, including an MCP server.
Elastic Search UI is a library of JavaScript and React tools for building search experiences, optimized for use with Elasticsearch.
Check out the Elasticsearch Labs blog to learn how to use Elastic to build advanced search experiences including generative AI, embedding models, reranking capabilities and more.
The accompanying GitHub repository contains hands-on Python notebooks and sample apps to help you get started with these advanced search features.