How do you debug your Nest queries?

You can get the values of search request URL and JSON request body as under:

var requestURL = response.RequestInformation.RequestUrl;var jsonBody = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(response.RequestInformation.Request);

You can find other useful properties in RequestInformation for debugging.

NEST is Baroque of .NET APIs. For 2.1+ on call level:

IElasticClient client = new ElasticClient();var searchDescriptor = new SearchDescriptor<Series>();var query = Query<Series>.Term(...);var pretty = query.ToPrettyString(query);var json = client.ToRawRequest(searchDescriptor.Query(descriptor => query));

On configuration level:

    var settings = new ConnectionSettings()                     .PrettyJson().DisableDirectStreaming()                     .OnRequestCompleted(details=> Debug.WriteLine(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(details.RequestBodyInBytes)));

On response level look into CallDetails.RequestBodyInBytes.

Used extensions:

    /// <summary>    /// Converts search to raw JSON request for debugging.    /// </summary>    /// <typeparam name="T">The type.</typeparam>    /// <param name="self">The self.</param>    /// <param name="searchDescriptor">The search descriptor.</param>    /// <returns>The string.</returns>    public static string ToRawRequest<T>(this IElasticClient self, SearchDescriptor<T> searchDescriptor) where T : class    {        using (var output = new MemoryStream())        {            self.Serializer.Serialize(searchDescriptor, output);            output.Position = 0;            var rawQuery = new StreamReader(output).ReadToEnd();            return rawQuery;        }    }    /// <summary>    /// Prints query into string.    /// </summary>    /// <param name="self">The self.</param>    /// <returns>The value.</returns>    public static string ToPrettyString(this QueryContainer self)    {        using (var settings = new ConnectionSettings())        {            var visitor = new DslPrettyPrintVisitor(settings);            self.Accept(visitor);            return visitor.PrettyPrint.Replace(Environment.NewLine, string.Empty);        }                                                                             }

I like to take it a step further than bsarkar suggests and eliminate the need for a roundtrip altogether:

var client = new ElasticClient();var seriesSearch = new SearchDescriptor<Series>();seriesSearch.Filter(f => f    .Term<Role>(t => t.ReleasableTo.First(), Role.Visitor))    .SortDescending(ser => ser.EndDate)    .Size(1));string searchJson = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(client.Serializer.Serialize(seriesSearch));

Note that your ElasticClient doesn't need any connection properties, so you have no dependency on an ES node.