# Documentation question

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 3, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319 "2025-03-03T17:45:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alon\_hen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alon_hen/32/137899_2.png) [@alon\_hen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alon_hen)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319/1 "2025-03-03T17:45:53Z")

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Hey guys, im trying to read through the docs to understand what a production grade deployment needs , anyways

I have reached the part where im reading about node roles

Now - there is something rather confusing to me in the documentation

> **[Node settings | Elasticsearch Guide \[8.17\] | Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-node.html#node-roles)**

At the 2nd+3rd sentence in the "Node role Settings" title, it says:  
" If you set `node.roles` , the node is only assigned the roles you specify. If you don’t set `node.roles` , the node is assigned the following roles:"

right below that, after the list of node roles available, you see this sentence

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/9/198b922b1f7367897ba4f6f3a6787c051338a7de.png)

Doesn't this contradict the sentence that says "If you don't set node.roles, the node is assigned the following roles:"  
and than list master\data as one of the defualt assigned roles,  
Why would the node be considered coordinating only node, if it has a "master" role for example ?

Or am i missing something?

Thanks in advance for any help! 🙂  
cheers

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![leandrojmp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/leandrojmp/32/107231_2.png) [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319/2 "2025-03-03T18:20:28Z")

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Yeah, the way the documentation is now can be a little confusing.

But the first part is about not having `node.roles` present in `elasticsearch.yml` and the second is about having it in `elasticsearch.yml` but not setting any value to it.

If you do not add a `node.roles` in `elasticsearch.yml` it will get the listed roles, but if you add `node.roles` in `elasticsearch.yml` but does not set any role, it will act as a coordinating only node.

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**Author:** ![RainTown](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/raintown/32/140206_2.png) [@RainTown](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/RainTown)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2025, 6:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319/3 "2025-03-03T18:41:20Z")

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I agree with @alon_hen , the documentation for this is poor.

I happened to know how it worked, but it's trying to invent some sort of difference between between

"If you don't set `node.roles`"  
and  
"If you leave `node.roles` unset, then"

which is nonsense.

The latter really means "if you set to an empty list, `node.roles: []`, then ...

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**Author:** ![TimV](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/timv/32/13162_2.png) [@TimV](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/TimV)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2025, 11:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319/4 "2025-03-03T23:57:12Z")

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That line only seems to exist in the 8.17 docs (it's not in the [8.18 docs](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/8.18/modules-node.html#node-roles) or the [8.16](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/8.16/modules-node.html#node-roles) ones).

From what I can tell, some things were moved around in the docs, and in order to keep links from breaking we needed to insert a statement about coordinating only nodes, and because it was done as an after-thought, the statement that was added was poorly worded.

We'll fix it.

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**Author:** ![alon\_hen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alon_hen/32/137899_2.png) [@alon\_hen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alon_hen)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 7:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documentation-question/375319/5 "2025-03-04T07:44:08Z")

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Thanks so much guys, understood! 🙂