Add Pinecone to your AI agent or app in minutes. Build a knowledge retrieval agent, use your IDE assistant, or integrate the SDK directly.

Get Pinecone running in your agent or app. Install the Pinecone plugin for your AI coding tool to get started instantly, or follow a step-by-step path below.

Agent / LLM? Start here

If you’re an AI agent or LLM reading this page to generate Pinecone code, here’s the full working pattern as a single runnable script.

Get set up

To get started, you’ll need a Pinecone account and API key.

1. Create a Pinecone account

If you’re new to Pinecone, sign up at app.pinecone.io and choose a plan:

• Starter plan (free): Free access to most features, but you’re limited to one cloud region and need to stay under Starter plan limits.
• Builder plan ($20/month): Higher quotas than Starter and predictable flat pricing with no usage overages, plus the ability to create indexes in any supported cloud region. Ideal for small production apps.
• Standard plan trial: 21 days and $300 in credits with access to Standard plan features and higher limits that let you test Pinecone at scale.

After signing up, you’ll receive an API key in the console. Save this key. You’ll need it to authenticate your requests to Pinecone.

2. Get a Pinecone API key

Create a new API key in the Pinecone console, or use the widget below to generate a key. If you don’t have a Pinecone account, the widget will sign you up for the free Starter plan.

Your generated API key:

Fastest: use your AI coding tool

Install the Pinecone plugin for your AI coding tool, then run the quickstart command. The plugin gives your agent up-to-date Pinecone API references, skills, and a bundled MCP server. The quickstart command walks you through setup with the official Pinecone CLI before generating and running sample code, so you end up with a reproducible setup instead of pasted snippets.

Choose your path

Build a knowledge retrieval agent

Build an AI agent that uses Pinecone to retrieve knowledge and answer questions accurately. This demo shows Pinecone as a tool inside an agent, which is the same pattern you’d use in production.

Next steps

Integrate the SDK directly

Integrate Pinecone directly into your application. Use these SDK calls wherever your code needs knowledge retrieval, whether that’s an agent, a backend service, or a standalone script.

1. Install an SDK

2. Create an index

Create an index with integrated embedding so you can upsert and search with text. Pinecone generates the vectors for you.

JavaScript, Java, and Go

3. Upsert data

Load records into your index. Each record has an ID, text content, and optional metadata. Pinecone converts the text to vectors automatically using the integrated embedding model.

JavaScript, Java, and Go

4. Search and rerank

Search the index for records semantically similar to a query, then rerank for more accurate results.

JavaScript, Java, and Go

5. Clean up

When you no longer need the example index, delete it:

JavaScript, Java, and Go

Next steps

No-code with n8n

Create an AI workflow that uses Pinecone for knowledge retrieval without writing any code. Use n8n to create a workflow that downloads files via HTTP and lets you chat with them using Pinecone Database and OpenAI.

1. Get an OpenAI API key

Create a new API key in the OpenAI console.

2. Create an index

Create an index in the Pinecone console:

• Name your index n8n-dense-index
• Under Configuration, check Custom settings and set Dimension to 1536.
• Leave everything else as default.

3. Set up n8n

4. Chat with your docs

Once the workflow is activated, ask it for the latest changes to Pinecone Database:

Next steps

• Use your own data:
  • Change the urls in Set file urls node to use your own files.
  • You may need to adjust the chunk sizes in the Recursive Character Text Splitter node or use a different chunking strategy. See Chunking Strategies for LLM Applications for more info.
  • Customize the system message of the AI Agent node to reflect what the Pinecone Vector Store Tool will be used for.
  • Customize the description of the Pinecone Vector Store Tool to reflect what data you are storing in the Pinecone index.
• Use n8n, Pinecone Assistant, and OpenAI to chat with your Google Drive documents.
• Get help in the Pinecone Discord community.