# Pinecone Local for development
## What it is
A Docker container exposing the Pinecone API surface locally, so integration tests and dev loops run without touching cloud indexes or spending quota.
## Setup pattern
1. Run the Pinecone Local container per its docs, pointing your SDK at the local host and port.
2. In code, make the client target configurable: an environment variable switches between cloud and local. Never hardcode the local address.
3. Seed test indexes in test setup, tear them down in teardown. Local indexes are disposable by design.
## What it cannot do
1. **Model production performance.** Latency and throughput on your laptop say nothing about serverless or pods.
2. **Replace quota testing.** Local has no quotas; code that works locally can still 429 or 403 in cloud.
3. **Some cloud-only features.** Integrated inference, bulk import from object storage, and console-managed features do not exist locally.
## Rules for agents
1. SSL verification flags exist for a reason against local endpoints with self-signed certs; scope any verification bypass to the local-only code path, never to cloud.
2. Keep one test that runs against a real serverless index (small, cheap) so local-only drift gets caught.
3. Do not put local-only workarounds (custom hosts, disabled TLS) in the shared client factory without the environment switch.