- NAME
-
- gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search - search data objects from a Vector Search collection
- SYNOPSIS
-
-
gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search--collection=COLLECTION--location=LOCATION(--semantic-search-field=SEMANTIC_SEARCH_FIELD--semantic-search-text=SEMANTIC_SEARCH_TEXT--semantic-task-type=SEMANTIC_TASK_TYPE|--text-search-data-fields=[DATA_FIELD_NAME, …]--text-search-text=TEXT_SEARCH_TEXT| [--vector-from-file=VECTOR_FROM_FILE--vector-search-field=VECTOR_SEARCH_FIELD:--distance-metric=DISTANCE_METRIC]) [--json-filter=JSON_FILTER] [--top-k=TOP_K] [--output-data-fields=[DATA_OUTPUT_FIELD, …]--output-metadata-fields=[METADATA_OUTPUT_FIELD, …]--output-vector-fields=[VECTOR_OUTPUT_FIELD, …]] [--use-index=INDEX|--use-knn] [GCLOUD_WIDE_FLAG …]
-
- DESCRIPTION
- Search data objects from a Vector Search collection.
- EXAMPLES
- To search data objects from collection
my-collectionin locationus-central1using text search and return 10 results, run:gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search --collection = my-collection --location = us-central1 --text-search-text = "test" --text-search-data-fields = "text_field" --top-k = 10To search data objects from collection
my-collectionin locationus-central1using semantic search and return 5 results, run:gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search --collection = my-collection --location = us-central1 --semantic-search-text = "sci-fi" --semantic-search-field = "plot_embedding" --semantic-task-type = "retrieval-query" --top-k = 5To search data objects from collection
my-collectionin locationus-central1using vector search with an index hint and return 7 results, run:gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search --collection = my-collection --location = us-central1 --vector-search-field = "genre_embedding" --vector-from-file = "vector.json" --use-index = "my-index" --top-k = 7To search data objects from collection
my-collectionin locationus-central1using vector search with KNN for exact results, run:gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search --collection = my-collection --location = us-central1 --vector-search-field = "genre_embedding" --vector-from-file = "vector.json" --use-knn --top-k = 7 - REQUIRED FLAGS
-
-
--collection=COLLECTION - The collection to search data objects from.
-
--location=LOCATION - Location of the collection.
- Search type
Exactly one of these must be specified:
- Semantic Search
-
--semantic-search-field=SEMANTIC_SEARCH_FIELD - The vector field to search.
This flag argument must be specified if any of the other arguments in this group are specified.
-
--semantic-search-text=SEMANTIC_SEARCH_TEXT - The query text for semantic search.
This flag argument must be specified if any of the other arguments in this group are specified.
-
--semantic-task-type=SEMANTIC_TASK_TYPE - The task type of the query embedding for semantic search.
SEMANTIC_TASK_TYPEmust be one of:-
classification - Specifies that the given text will be classified.
-
clustering - Specifies that the embeddings will be used for clustering.
-
code-retrieval-query - Specifies that the embeddings will be used for code retrieval.
-
fact-verification - Specifies that the embeddings will be used for fact verification.
-
question-answering - Specifies that the embeddings will be used for question answering.
-
retrieval-document - Specifies the given text is a document from the corpus being searched.
-
retrieval-query - Specifies the given text is a query in a search/retrieval setting.
-
semantic-similarity - Specifies the given text will be used for STS.
-
- Text Search
-
--text-search-data-fields=[DATA_FIELD_NAME,…] - The data field names to search.
This flag argument must be specified if any of the other arguments in this group are specified.
-
--text-search-text=TEXT_SEARCH_TEXT - The query text for text search.
This flag argument must be specified if any of the other arguments in this group are specified.
- Vector Search
-
--vector-from-file=VECTOR_FROM_FILE - Path to a JSON file containing dense or sparse vector to search with.
- Example file content for dense vector:
{ "dense" : { "values" : [ 0 .7, 0 .6, 0 .5, 0 .4 ] } }
- Example file content for sparse vector:
{ "sparse" : { "indices" : [ 1 , 5 , 10 ] , "values" : [ 0 .1, 0 .5, 0 .21 ] } }
This flag argument must be specified if any of the other arguments in this group are specified.
-
--vector-search-field=VECTOR_SEARCH_FIELD - The vector field to search.
This flag argument must be specified if any of the other arguments in this group are specified.
-
--distance-metric=DISTANCE_METRIC - The distance metric to use for the KNN search. If not specified, dot-product
will be used as the default.
DISTANCE_METRICmust be one of:-
cosine-distance - Cosine distance metric.
-
dot-product - Dot product distance metric.
-
-
- OPTIONAL FLAGS
-
-
--json-filter=JSON_FILTER - A filter expression in JSON format to apply to the search, e.g.
'{"genre": {"$eq": "sci-fi"}}'. -
--top-k=TOP_K - The number of nearest neighbors to return. Default is 10.
- Output fields
-
--output-data-fields=[DATA_OUTPUT_FIELD,…] - List of data fields to include in the output. Use
*to include all data fields. - List of metadata fields to include in the output. Use
*to include all metadata fields. -
--output-vector-fields=[VECTOR_OUTPUT_FIELD,…] - List of vector fields to include in the output. Use
*to include all vector fields. - Search Hint
At most one of these can be specified:
- Use Index Options
-
--use-index=INDEX - Full resource name or ID of the index to use for the search. This flag is compatible only with Semantic Search and Vector Search.
-
-
--use-knn - If set to true, the search will use the system's default K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) index engine. This flag is compatible only with Semantic Search and Vector Search.
- Use Index Options
-
- GCLOUD WIDE FLAGS
- These flags are available to all commands:
--access-token-file,--account,--billing-project,--configuration,--flags-file,--flatten,--format,--help,--impersonate-service-account,--log-http,--project,--quiet,--trace-token,--user-output-enabled,--verbosity.Run
$ gcloud helpfor details. - NOTES
- This variant is also available:
gcloud beta vector-search collections data-objects search
gcloud vector-search collections data-objects search
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Last updated 2026-05-27 UTC.

