Link Search Menu Expand Document Documentation Menu
Documentation

Search pipelines

You can use search pipelines to build new or reuse existing result rerankers, query rewriters, and other components that operate on queries or results. Search pipelines make it easier for you to process search queries and search results within OpenSearch. Moving some of your application functionality into an OpenSearch search pipeline reduces the overall complexity of your application. As part of a search pipeline, you specify a list of search processors that perform modular tasks. You can then easily add or reorder these processors to customize search results for your application.

When defined, a search pipeline is an ordered list of search processors that is integrated into OpenSearch. The pipeline shown in the following diagram intercepts a query, performs processing on the query, sends it to OpenSearch, intercepts the results, performs processing on the results, and returns them to the calling application.

Search processor diagram

Both request and response processing for the pipeline are performed on the coordinator node, so there is no shard-level processing.

Search processors

Search processors can be classified by execution phase (when they run):

  • Search request processors: A search request processor intercepts a search request (the query and the metadata passed in the request), performs an operation with or on the search request, and submits the search request to the index.
  • Search response processors: A search response processor intercepts a search response and search request (the query, results, and metadata passed in the request), performs an operation with or on the search response, and returns the search response.
  • Search phase results processors: A search phase results processor runs between search phases at the coordinating node level. It intercepts the results retrieved from one search phase and transforms them before passing them to the next search phase.

Example

To create a search pipeline, send a request to the search pipeline endpoint specifying an ordered list of processors, which will be applied sequentially:

PUT /_search/pipeline/my_pipeline 
{
  "request_processors": [
    {
      "filter_query" : {
        "tag" : "tag1",
        "description" : "This processor is going to restrict to publicly visible documents",
        "query" : {
          "term": {
            "visibility": "public"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "response_processors": [
    {
      "rename_field": {
        "field": "message",
        "target_field": "notification"
      }
    }
  ]
}

For more information about creating and updating a search pipeline, see Creating a search pipeline.

To use a pipeline with a query, specify the pipeline name in the search_pipeline query parameter:

GET /my_index/_search?search_pipeline=my_pipeline

Alternatively, you can use a temporary pipeline with a request or set a default pipeline for an index. To learn more, see Using a search pipeline.

To learn about retrieving details for an existing search pipeline, see Retrieving search pipelines.

Manual and automatic processor creation

Search processors can be created manually or automatically:

Search pipeline metrics

For information about retrieving search pipeline statistics, see Search pipeline metrics.

350 characters left

Have a question? .

Want to contribute? or .