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AWS documentdb documentation change

Service: documentdb · 2026-03-31 · Documentation low

File: documentdb/latest/developerguide/vectorSearch.md

Summary

Added comprehensive documentation for the new $vectorSearch operator in Amazon DocumentDB, including parameters, examples, and code samples for MongoDB Shell, Node.js, and Python.

Security assessment

This change documents a new feature (vector search) for machine learning and AI use cases. The documentation includes standard connection strings with TLS parameters (tls=true, tlsCAFile) which are existing security best practices, but these are not new security features. There is no evidence of addressing a specific security vulnerability, weakness, or incident. The change is purely feature documentation.

Diff

diff --git a/documentdb/latest/developerguide/vectorSearch.md b/documentdb/latest/developerguide/vectorSearch.md
index 8b1378917..ef48634a7 100644
--- a//documentdb/latest/developerguide/vectorSearch.md
+++ b//documentdb/latest/developerguide/vectorSearch.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+[](/pdfs/documentdb/latest/developerguide/developerguide.pdf#vectorSearch "Open PDF")
@@ -1,0 +3,196 @@
+[Documentation](/index.html)[Amazon DocumentDB](/documentdb/index.html)[Developer Guide](what-is.html)
+
+Example (MongoDB Shell)Code examples
+
+# $vectorSearch
+
+New from version 8.0
+
+Not supported by Elastic cluster.
+
+The `$vectorSearch` operator in Amazon DocumentDB allows you to perform vector search, a method used in machine learning to find similar data points by comparing their vector representations using distance or similarity metrics. This capability combines the flexibility and rich querying of a JSON-based document database with the power of vector search, enabling you to build machine learning and generative AI use cases such as semantic search, product recommendation, and more.
+
+**Parameters**
+
+  * `<exact>` (optional): Flag that specifies whether to run Exact Nearest Neighbor (ENN) or Approximate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) search. Value can be one of the following:
+
+  * false - to run ANN search
+
+  * true - to run ENN search
+
+
+
+
+If omitted or set to false, `numCandidates` is required.
+    
+    
+    - `<index>` : Name of the Vector Search index to use.
+    - `<limit>` : Number of documents to return in the results.
+    - `<numCandidates>` (optional): This field is required if 'exact' is false or omitted. Number of nearest neighbors to use during the search. Value must be less than or equal to (<=) 10000. You can't specify a number less than the number of documents to return ('limit').
+    - `<path>` : Indexed vector type field to search.
+    - `<queryVector>` : Array of numbers that represent the query vector.
+
+## Example (MongoDB Shell)
+
+The following example demonstrates how to use the `$vectorSearch` operator to find similar product descriptions based on their vector representations.
+
+**Create sample documents**
+    
+    
+    db.products.insertMany([
+      {
+        _id: 1,
+        name: "Product A",
+        description: "A high-quality, eco-friendly product for your home.",
+        description_vector: [ 0.2, 0.5, 0.8 ]
+      },
+      {
+        _id: 2,
+        name: "Product B",
+        description: "An innovative and modern kitchen appliance.",
+        description_vector: [0.7, 0.3, 0.9]
+      },
+      {
+        _id: 3,
+        name: "Product C",
+        description: "A comfortable and stylish piece of furniture.",
+        description_vector: [0.1, 0.2, 0.4]
+      }
+    ]);
+
+**Create vector search index**
+    
+    
+    db.runCommand(
+        {
+            createIndexes: "products",
+            indexes: [{
+                key: {
+                    "description_vector": "vector"
+                },
+                vectorOptions: {
+                    type: "hnsw",
+                    dimensions: 3,
+                    similarity: "cosine",
+                    m: 16,
+                    efConstruction: 64
+                },
+                name: "description_index"
+            }]
+        }
+    );
+
+**Query example**
+    
+    
+    db.products.aggregate([
+      { $vectorSearch: {
+          index: "description_index",
+          limit: 2,
+          numCandidates: 10,
+          path: "description_vector",
+          queryVector: [0.1, 0.2, 0.3]
+        }
+      }
+    ]);
+
+**Output**
+    
+    
+    [
+      {
+        "_id": 1,
+        "name": "Product A",
+        "description": "A high-quality, eco-friendly product for your home.",
+        "description_vector": [ 0.2, 0.5, 0.8 ]
+      },
+      {
+        "_id": 3,
+        "name": "Product C",
+        "description": "A comfortable and stylish piece of furniture.",
+        "description_vector": [ 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 ]
+      }
+    ]
+
+## Code examples
+
+To view a code example for using the `$vectorSearch` command, choose the tab for the language that you want to use:
+
+Node.js
+    
+    
+    
+    const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');
+    
+    async function findSimilarProducts(queryVector) {
+      const client = await MongoClient.connect('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false');
+      const db = client.db('test');
+      const collection = db.collection('products');
+    
+      const result = await collection.aggregate([
+        { $vectorSearch: {
+            index: "description_index",
+            limit: 2,
+            numCandidates: 10,
+            path: "description_vector",
+            queryVector: queryVector
+          }
+        }
+      ]).toArray();
+    
+      console.log(result);
+      client.close();
+    }
+    
+    findSimilarProducts([0.1, 0.2, 0.3]);
+
+Python
+    
+    
+    
+    from pymongo import MongoClient
+    
+    
+    def find_similar_products(query_vector):
+        client = MongoClient('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false')
+        db = client.test
+        collection = db.products
+    
+        result = list(collection.aggregate([
+            {
+                '$vectorSearch': {
+                    'index': "description_index",
+                    'limit': 2,
+                    'numCandidates': 10,
+                    'path': "description_vector",
+                    'queryVector': query_vector
+                }
+            }
+        ]))
+    
+        print(result)
+        client.close()
+    
+    find_similar_products([0.1, 0.2, 0.3])
+
+![Warning](https://d1ge0kk1l5kms0.cloudfront.net/images/G/01/webservices/console/warning.png) **Javascript is disabled or is unavailable in your browser.**
+
+To use the Amazon Web Services Documentation, Javascript must be enabled. Please refer to your browser's Help pages for instructions.
+
+[Document Conventions](/general/latest/gr/docconventions.html)
+
+$unwind
+
+$week
+
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