anchor.diff:  [[cat-health]]
   === cat health
   
  -`health` is a terse, one-line representation of the same information
  -from `/_cluster/health`.
  +Returns the health status of a cluster, similar to the <<cluster-health,cluster
  +health>> API.
  +
  +
  +[[cat-health-api-request]]
  +==== {api-request-title}
  +
  +`GET /_cat/health`
  +
  +
  +[[cat-health-api-desc]]
  +==== {api-description-title}
  +
  +You can use the cat health API to get the health status of a cluster.
  +
  +[[timestamp]]
  +This API is often used to check malfunctioning clusters. To help you
  +track cluster health alongside log files and alerting systems, the API returns
  +timestamps in two formats:
  +
  +* `HH:MM:SS`, which is human-readable but includes no date information.
  +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time[Unix `epoch` time], which is
  +machine-sortable and includes date information. This is useful for cluster
  +recoveries that take multiple days.
  +
  +You can use the cat health API to verify cluster health across multiple nodes.
  +See <<cat-health-api-example-across-nodes>>.
  +
  +You also can use the API to track the recovery of a large cluster
  +over a longer period of time. See <<cat-health-api-example-large-cluster>>.
  +
  +
  +[[cat-health-api-query-params]]
  +==== {api-query-parms-title}
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=http-format]
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=cat-h]
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=help]
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=local]
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=master-timeout]
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=cat-s]
  +
  +`ts` (timestamps)::
  +(Optional, boolean) If `true`, returns `HH:MM:SS` and
  +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time[Unix `epoch`] timestamps. Defaults to
  +`true`.
  +
  +include::{docdir}/rest-api/common-parms.asciidoc[tag=cat-v]
  +
  +
  +[[cat-health-api-example]]
  +==== {api-examples-title}
  +
  +[[cat-health-api-example-timestamp]]
  +===== Example with a timestamp
  +By default, the cat health API returns `HH:MM:SS` and
  +https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time[Unix `epoch`] timestamps. For example:
   
   [source,js]
   --------------------------------------------------
  
positive.code: --------------------------------------------------
  // TESTRESPONSE[s/elasticsearch/[^ ]+/ s/0                  -/\\d+ (-|\\d+(\\.\\d+)?[ms]+)/ non_json]
  
  A common use of this command is to verify the health is consistent
  across nodes:
  
  [source,sh]
  --------------------------------------------------
  
negative.code: --------------------------------------------------
  // NOTCONSOLE
  
  [[cat-health-api-example-large-cluster]]
  ===== Example with a large cluster
  You can use the cat health API to track the recovery of a large cluster over a
  longer period of time. You can do this by including the cat health API request
  in a delayed loop. For example:
  
  [source,sh]
  --------------------------------------------------
  