Kibana _cat API tips for Elasticsearch

📅 Published: Apr 25, 2025 • Thomas Queste

Simple _cat API tips that will make working with Elasticsearch in Kibana easier.

TL;DR

v (verbose) displays column headers for all _cat APIs
s=field sorts output by the specified column, s=field:desc for descending
h=field1,field2 to display specific columns
Combine them: ?v&s=field1&h=field1,field2

Example

Stop guessing what each column means with v (verbose).
Sort the output with s=field to make it more readable.

Output:

GET _cat/indices/my-app*?v&s=index

health status index                uuid                   pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size dataset.size
green  open   my-app-2025.04.15    ZYe2TuLnTGOJrWnlwK3w2A   1   1      14576            0      7.8mb          3.9mb        3.9mb   
green  open   my-app-2025.04.16    39cQj19gTa28hkYNMr9syQ   1   1      28347            0     15.1mb          7.5mb        7.5mb

More: custom columns, sort descending

Use h=field1,field2 to specify which columns to display.

GET _cat/indices/my-app*?v&s=index&h=health,index

Use s=field:desc to sort in descending order.

GET _cat/indices/my-app*?v&s=index:desc

Fun Fact

➡️ Do you know what “CAT” means in the _cat API?

It stands for “Compact and Aligned Text.”

Why? Because those _cat APIs are specifically designed for human readability in the Kibana console, formatted to be easy on the eyes and to present information in an organized, tabular format. I never knew that, or forgot (my old age 😫)!

From the doc:

JSON is great… for computers. Even if it’s pretty-printed, trying to find relationships in the data is tedious. Human eyes, especially when looking at a terminal, need compact and aligned text. The compact and aligned text (CAT) APIs aim to meet this need.

Reference

Elasticsearch _cat API documentation.
(weird, the new documentation site for Elastic 9 does not show the common parameters! I have submitted an issue)

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