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The official Pinecone plugin for Codex adds Pinecone skills and the Pinecone MCP server to your Codex sessions. Use natural language to manage indexes, query data, build RAG applications, and create document Q&A assistants, with up-to-date Pinecone API knowledge.

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Features

  • Built-in skills for index management, semantic search, full-text search, assistant creation, and more
  • Bundled MCP server for direct Pinecone operations from Codex, with no extra setup
  • Natural language activation — Codex invokes the right skill based on your conversation

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Prerequisites

  • A Pinecone API key
  • The ChatGPT desktop app (which includes Codex) or the Codex CLI
  • A local Codex session, since the plugin runs on your machine and doesn’t work in Codex cloud tasks
  • Node.js installed and on your PATH (required for the bundled MCP server)
  • uv installed (required to run the bundled Python scripts, including the quickstart skill)
  • Pinecone CLI installed (optional, enables the pinecone:cli skill)

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Install the plugin

Install the plugin from the plugin directory or the command line, then set your API key and launch Codex.
1

Add the plugin to Codex

Open the Pinecone plugin in the ChatGPT desktop app, then click Install plugin.To find it yourself instead:
  1. In the ChatGPT desktop app, click your profile in the bottom left, then click Settings.
  2. In the left navigation, click Plugins. You’ll see a list of the plugins you already have.
  3. Click Browse directory.
  4. Search for Pinecone, then select Pinecone.
  5. Click Install plugin.
For more about installing plugins, see Plugins in ChatGPT in the OpenAI Help Center.
2

Set your API key and launch Codex

Installing the plugin doesn’t set your API key. Codex reads it from the environment it launches in.
  1. Set the key in the same shell where you run Codex:
    Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your Pinecone API key. To keep it across terminal sessions, add the line to your shell profile, such as ~/.zshrc.
  2. Start Codex:
3

Run the quickstart

In a new Codex session, ask:
Codex invokes the pinecone:quickstart skill, checks the connection to the Pinecone MCP server, creates an integrated index, upserts sample records, and runs a search.

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Available skills

Codex picks the right skill based on what you ask. To call a skill directly, type $ followed by its name, such as $pinecone:quickstart. To bring in the whole plugin, mention @pinecone.

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MCP tools

The plugin includes the Pinecone MCP server, which provides the following tools:
  • search-docs: Search the official Pinecone documentation.
  • list-indexes: List all available Pinecone indexes.
  • describe-index: Get index configuration and namespaces.
  • describe-index-stats: Get record counts and namespace statistics.
  • create-index-for-model: Create a new index with integrated embeddings.
  • upsert-records: Insert or update records in an index.
  • search-records: Search records with optional metadata filtering and reranking.
  • cascading-search: Search across multiple indexes with deduplication and reranking.
  • rerank-documents: Rerank documents using a specified reranking model.
For full MCP server documentation, see Use the Pinecone MCP server.

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Troubleshooting

  • CLI (macOS, Linux): In the same shell where you run codex, run [ -n "$PINECONE_API_KEY" ] && echo "set" || echo "not set". If it prints not set, set the key again.
  • CLI (Windows): In the same PowerShell session where you run codex, run if ($env:PINECONE_API_KEY) { "set" } else { "not set" }. If it prints not set, set the key again.
  • Desktop app (macOS): Run launchctl getenv PINECONE_API_KEY. If it returns nothing, set the key again, then quit and reopen the app.
  • Desktop app (Windows): In PowerShell, run [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("PINECONE_API_KEY", "User"). If it returns nothing, set the key again, then quit and reopen the app.
Make sure Node.js is on your PATH and your API key is valid, then restart Codex.
The pinecone:query skill works only with integrated indexes, which use a Pinecone-hosted embedding model. For indexes that use external embeddings, use the pinecone:cli skill or the MCP tools directly.
Run uv --version to confirm uv is installed. If it’s missing, install it and restart your terminal.

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