Azure AI Search SDK for Python Full-text, vector, and hybrid search with AI enrichment capabilities. Installation pip install azure-search-documents Environment Variables AZURE_SEARCH_ENDPOINT = https:// < service-name
.search.windows.net AZURE_SEARCH_API_KEY = < your-api-key
AZURE_SEARCH_INDEX_NAME
< your-index-name
Authentication API Key from azure . search . documents import SearchClient from azure . core . credentials import AzureKeyCredential client = SearchClient ( endpoint = os . environ [ "AZURE_SEARCH_ENDPOINT" ] , index_name = os . environ [ "AZURE_SEARCH_INDEX_NAME" ] , credential = AzureKeyCredential ( os . environ [ "AZURE_SEARCH_API_KEY" ] ) ) Entra ID (Recommended) from azure . search . documents import SearchClient from azure . identity import DefaultAzureCredential client = SearchClient ( endpoint = os . environ [ "AZURE_SEARCH_ENDPOINT" ] , index_name = os . environ [ "AZURE_SEARCH_INDEX_NAME" ] , credential = DefaultAzureCredential ( ) ) Client Types Client Purpose SearchClient Search and document operations SearchIndexClient Index management, synonym maps SearchIndexerClient Indexers, data sources, skillsets Create Index with Vector Field from azure . search . documents . indexes import SearchIndexClient from azure . search . documents . indexes . models import ( SearchIndex , SearchField , SearchFieldDataType , VectorSearch , HnswAlgorithmConfiguration , VectorSearchProfile , SearchableField , SimpleField ) index_client = SearchIndexClient ( endpoint , AzureKeyCredential ( key ) ) fields = [ SimpleField ( name = "id" , type = SearchFieldDataType . String , key = True ) , SearchableField ( name = "title" , type = SearchFieldDataType . String ) , SearchableField ( name = "content" , type = SearchFieldDataType . String ) , SearchField ( name = "content_vector" , type = SearchFieldDataType . Collection ( SearchFieldDataType . Single ) , searchable = True , vector_search_dimensions = 1536 , vector_search_profile_name = "my-vector-profile" ) ] vector_search = VectorSearch ( algorithms = [ HnswAlgorithmConfiguration ( name = "my-hnsw" ) ] , profiles = [ VectorSearchProfile ( name = "my-vector-profile" , algorithm_configuration_name = "my-hnsw" ) ] ) index = SearchIndex ( name = "my-index" , fields = fields , vector_search = vector_search ) index_client . create_or_update_index ( index ) Upload Documents from azure . search . documents import SearchClient client = SearchClient ( endpoint , "my-index" , AzureKeyCredential ( key ) ) documents = [ { "id" : "1" , "title" : "Azure AI Search" , "content" : "Full-text and vector search service" , "content_vector" : [ 0.1 , 0.2 , . . . ]
1536 dimensions
} ] result = client . upload_documents ( documents ) print ( f"Uploaded { len ( result ) } documents" ) Keyword Search results = client . search ( search_text = "azure search" , select = [ "id" , "title" , "content" ] , top = 10 ) for result in results : print ( f" { result [ 'title' ] } : { result [ '@search.score' ] } " ) Vector Search from azure . search . documents . models import VectorizedQuery
Your query embedding (1536 dimensions)
query_vector
get_embedding ( "semantic search capabilities" ) vector_query = VectorizedQuery ( vector = query_vector , k_nearest_neighbors = 10 , fields = "content_vector" ) results = client . search ( vector_queries = [ vector_query ] , select = [ "id" , "title" , "content" ] ) for result in results : print ( f" { result [ 'title' ] } : { result [ '@search.score' ] } " ) Hybrid Search (Vector + Keyword) from azure . search . documents . models import VectorizedQuery vector_query = VectorizedQuery ( vector = query_vector , k_nearest_neighbors = 10 , fields = "content_vector" ) results = client . search ( search_text = "azure search" , vector_queries = [ vector_query ] , select = [ "id" , "title" , "content" ] , top = 10 ) Semantic Ranking from azure . search . documents . models import QueryType results = client . search ( search_text = "what is azure search" , query_type = QueryType . SEMANTIC , semantic_configuration_name = "my-semantic-config" , select = [ "id" , "title" , "content" ] , top = 10 ) for result in results : print ( f" { result [ 'title' ] } " ) if result . get ( "@search.captions" ) : print ( f" Caption: { result [ '@search.captions' ] [ 0 ] . text } " ) Filters results = client . search ( search_text = "" , filter = "category eq 'Technology' and rating gt 4" , order_by = [ "rating desc" ] , select = [ "id" , "title" , "category" , "rating" ] ) Facets results = client . search ( search_text = "" , facets = [ "category,count:10" , "rating" ] , top = 0
Only get facets, no documents
) for facet_name , facet_values in results . get_facets ( ) . items ( ) : print ( f" { facet_name } :" ) for facet in facet_values : print ( f" { facet [ 'value' ] } : { facet [ 'count' ] } " ) Autocomplete & Suggest
Autocomplete
results
client . autocomplete ( search_text = "sea" , suggester_name = "my-suggester" , mode = "twoTerms" )
Suggest
results
client . suggest ( search_text = "sea" , suggester_name = "my-suggester" , select = [ "title" ] ) Indexer with Skillset from azure . search . documents . indexes import SearchIndexerClient from azure . search . documents . indexes . models import ( SearchIndexer , SearchIndexerDataSourceConnection , SearchIndexerSkillset , EntityRecognitionSkill , InputFieldMappingEntry , OutputFieldMappingEntry ) indexer_client = SearchIndexerClient ( endpoint , AzureKeyCredential ( key ) )
Create data source
data_source
SearchIndexerDataSourceConnection ( name = "my-datasource" , type = "azureblob" , connection_string = connection_string , container = { "name" : "documents" } ) indexer_client . create_or_update_data_source_connection ( data_source )
Create skillset
skillset
SearchIndexerSkillset ( name = "my-skillset" , skills = [ EntityRecognitionSkill ( inputs = [ InputFieldMappingEntry ( name = "text" , source = "/document/content" ) ] , outputs = [ OutputFieldMappingEntry ( name = "organizations" , target_name = "organizations" ) ] ) ] ) indexer_client . create_or_update_skillset ( skillset )
Create indexer
indexer
SearchIndexer ( name = "my-indexer" , data_source_name = "my-datasource" , target_index_name = "my-index" , skillset_name = "my-skillset" ) indexer_client . create_or_update_indexer ( indexer ) Best Practices Use hybrid search for best relevance combining vector and keyword Enable semantic ranking for natural language queries Index in batches of 100-1000 documents for efficiency Use filters to narrow results before ranking Configure vector dimensions to match your embedding model Use HNSW algorithm for large-scale vector search Create suggesters at index creation time (cannot add later) Reference Files File Contents references/vector-search.md HNSW configuration, integrated vectorization, multi-vector queries references/semantic-ranking.md Semantic configuration, captions, answers, hybrid patterns scripts/setup_vector_index.py CLI script to create vector-enabled search index Additional Azure AI Search Patterns Azure AI Search Python SDK Write clean, idiomatic Python code for Azure AI Search using azure-search-documents . Installation pip install azure-search-documents azure-identity Environment Variables AZURE_SEARCH_ENDPOINT = https:// < search-service
.search.windows.net AZURE_SEARCH_INDEX_NAME = < index-name
For API key auth (not recommended for production)
AZURE_SEARCH_API_KEY
< api-key
Authentication DefaultAzureCredential (preferred) : from azure . identity import DefaultAzureCredential from azure . search . documents import SearchClient credential = DefaultAzureCredential ( ) client = SearchClient ( endpoint , index_name , credential ) API Key : from azure . core . credentials import AzureKeyCredential from azure . search . documents import SearchClient client = SearchClient ( endpoint , index_name , AzureKeyCredential ( api_key ) ) Client Selection Client Purpose SearchClient Query indexes, upload/update/delete documents SearchIndexClient Create/manage indexes, knowledge sources, knowledge bases SearchIndexerClient Manage indexers, skillsets, data sources KnowledgeBaseRetrievalClient Agentic retrieval with LLM-powered Q&A Index Creation Pattern from azure . search . documents . indexes import SearchIndexClient from azure . search . documents . indexes . models import ( SearchIndex , SearchField , VectorSearch , VectorSearchProfile , HnswAlgorithmConfiguration , AzureOpenAIVectorizer , AzureOpenAIVectorizerParameters , SemanticSearch , SemanticConfiguration , SemanticPrioritizedFields , SemanticField ) index = SearchIndex ( name = index_name , fields = [ SearchField ( name = "id" , type = "Edm.String" , key = True ) , SearchField ( name = "content" , type = "Edm.String" , searchable = True ) , SearchField ( name = "embedding" , type = "Collection(Edm.Single)" , vector_search_dimensions = 3072 , vector_search_profile_name = "vector-profile" ) , ] , vector_search = VectorSearch ( profiles = [ VectorSearchProfile ( name = "vector-profile" , algorithm_configuration_name = "hnsw-algo" , vectorizer_name = "openai-vectorizer" ) ] , algorithms = [ HnswAlgorithmConfiguration ( name = "hnsw-algo" ) ] , vectorizers = [ AzureOpenAIVectorizer ( vectorizer_name = "openai-vectorizer" , parameters = AzureOpenAIVectorizerParameters ( resource_url = aoai_endpoint , deployment_name = embedding_deployment , model_name = embedding_model ) ) ] ) , semantic_search = SemanticSearch ( default_configuration_name = "semantic-config" , configurations = [ SemanticConfiguration ( name = "semantic-config" , prioritized_fields = SemanticPrioritizedFields ( content_fields = [ SemanticField ( field_name = "content" ) ] ) ) ] ) ) index_client = SearchIndexClient ( endpoint , credential ) index_client . create_or_update_index ( index ) Document Operations from azure . search . documents import SearchIndexingBufferedSender
Batch upload with automatic batching
with SearchIndexingBufferedSender ( endpoint , index_name , credential ) as sender : sender . upload_documents ( documents )
Direct operations via SearchClient
search_client
SearchClient ( endpoint , index_name , credential ) search_client . upload_documents ( documents )
Add new
search_client . merge_documents ( documents )
Update existing
search_client . merge_or_upload_documents ( documents )
Upsert
search_client . delete_documents ( documents )
Remove
Search Patterns
Basic search
results
search_client . search ( search_text = "query" )
Vector search
from azure . search . documents . models import VectorizedQuery results = search_client . search ( search_text = None , vector_queries = [ VectorizedQuery ( vector = embedding , k_nearest_neighbors = 5 , fields = "embedding" ) ] )
Hybrid search (vector + keyword)
results
search_client . search ( search_text = "query" , vector_queries = [ VectorizedQuery ( vector = embedding , k_nearest_neighbors = 5 , fields = "embedding" ) ] , query_type = "semantic" , semantic_configuration_name = "semantic-config" )
With filters
results
- search_client
- .
- search
- (
- search_text
- =
- "query"
- ,
- filter
- =
- "category eq 'technology'"
- ,
- select
- =
- [
- "id"
- ,
- "title"
- ,
- "content"
- ]
- ,
- top
- =
- 10
- )
- Agentic Retrieval (Knowledge Bases)
- For LLM-powered Q&A with answer synthesis, see references/agentic-retrieval.md.
- Key concepts:
- Knowledge Source
-
- Points to a search index
- Knowledge Base
- Wraps knowledge sources + LLM for query planning and synthesis Output modes : EXTRACTIVE_DATA (raw chunks) or ANSWER_SYNTHESIS (LLM-generated answers) Async Pattern from azure . search . documents . aio import SearchClient async with SearchClient ( endpoint , index_name , credential ) as client : results = await client . search ( search_text = "query" ) async for result in results : print ( result [ "title" ] ) Best Practices Use environment variables for endpoints, keys, and deployment names Prefer DefaultAzureCredential over API keys for production Use SearchIndexingBufferedSender for batch uploads (handles batching/retries) Always define semantic configuration for agentic retrieval indexes Use create_or_update_index for idempotent index creation Close clients with context managers or explicit close() Field Types Reference EDM Type Python Notes Edm.String str Searchable text Edm.Int32 int Integer Edm.Int64 int Long integer Edm.Double float Floating point Edm.Boolean bool True/False Edm.DateTimeOffset datetime ISO 8601 Collection(Edm.Single) List[float] Vector embeddings Collection(Edm.String) List[str] String arrays Error Handling from azure . core . exceptions import ( HttpResponseError , ResourceNotFoundError , ResourceExistsError ) try : result = search_client . get_document ( key = "123" ) except ResourceNotFoundError : print ( "Document not found" ) except HttpResponseError as e : print ( f"Search error: { e . message } " ) When to Use This skill is applicable to execute the workflow or actions described in the overview.