Naming rules (Azure AI Search)

This section explains the naming rules for Azure AI Search.

Chart of naming rules

Conventions vary by object due to how objects are used. The naming rules of other standards are imposed on specific Azure AI Search objects. URLs and JSON have different conventions in terms of case-sensitivity, special characters, and character placement. By necessity, objects referenced in a URL (host name, path, or query string) or JSON request body must follow the naming conventions of the applicable standard.

Name Length Case Allowable characters Character placement Example
Service 2 - 60 Lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-) First, second, and last characters must be a letter or number.

No consecutive dashes anywhere.
contoso-srch1
Index 2 - 128 Lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-), underscores (_) First character must be a letter or number.

No consecutive dashes or underscores
idx-hotels-2024
Field 1 -128 Upper or lower Letters, numbers, underscores (_) First character must be a letter.

The name can't begin with "azureSearch".
Store_Name
Document key 1024 Upper or lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-), underscores (_), equal signs (=)

For compound keys, we recommend using a dash, underscore, or equal sign as a separator.

If keys contain other symbols, we recommend encoding them using a URL-safe variant of Base64. For example, in .NET you can use the HttpServerUtility.UrlTokenEncode method for this purpose.
First character can't be an underscore. RXhhbXBsZSBkb2N1bWVudCBrZXk=

The string "Example document key" encoded in base 64. URL-safe Base64 encoding is recommended because document keys are sometimes used in the URL path. Encoding allows you to use characters in a document key that would otherwise be problematic in a URL.
Scoring profile 1 - 128 Upper or lower Letters, numbers, underscores (_) First character must be a letter or number. BoostFunc_TagsCustHist
Suggester 1 - 128 Upper or lower Letters, numbers, underscores (_) First character must be a letter or number. Sugst01_Apparel
Data source 1 - 128 Lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-) First and last character must be a letter or number. docdbds-onlinecatalog-20240228
Indexer 1 -128 Lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-) First and last character must be a letter or number. docbindxr-onlinecatalog-20240228
Synonym map 1 -128 Lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-) First and last character must be a letter or number. custom-synonyms-2024
Skillset 1 -128 Lower Letters, numbers, dashes (-) First and last character must be a letter or number. grok-myfiles-skillset-1

See also