Load Docker Verified Publisher data to DuckDB

The Docker Verified Publisher (DVP) Data API provides programmatic access to usage metrics for images distributed by Verified Publishers on Docker Hub. Everything needed to build a working Docker Verified Publisher → DuckDB pipeline is on this page: the API's base URL, authentication, endpoints, pagination and incremental field — plus a prompt that hands the whole job to your coding agent.

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Build your Docker Verified Publisher to DuckDB pipeline

Paste this prompt into Claude, Codex, or Cursor. The agent does the rest.

PromptCopy prompt
Run uvx dlthub-init@latest to build a pipeline from Docker Verified Publisher to DuckDB and run it on dltHub

That scaffolds a dltHub workspace and installs the dltHub AI harness — the project rules, the secrets-management skill, and the dlt MCP server your agent needs to work safely. From there it reads the Docker Verified Publisher API, proposes the endpoints to load, then writes, runs and validates the pipeline while you review rather than type. Credentials are inspected through MCP tools, so your agent never reads secrets.toml itself. How the LLM-native workflow works →

Prefer to write it yourself? Every fact the agent uses is below.

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Docker Verified Publisher API at a glance

These values come from the Docker Verified Publisher API reference — the authoritative source if anything here looks out of date.

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How do I authenticate with the Docker Verified Publisher API?

Authenticates using a Bearer token in the 'Authorization' header, typically obtained by exchanging a username and personal access token (PAT) via the /v2/users/login or /v2/auth/token endpoints.

1. Get your credentials

1. Sign in to your Docker Hub account. 2. Navigate to Account Settings > Security. 3. Select New Access Token. 4. Provide a description and select the required access permissions (e.g., Read-only, Read & Write). 5. Generate the token. 6. Copy the token immediately, as it cannot be retrieved again. 7. For API requests, exchange this PAT for a short-lived JWT by sending a POST request to https://hub.docker.com/v2/auth/token with your username and PAT in the body. Use this JWT in the Authorization header as Bearer for subsequent API calls.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.docker_verified_publisher_source]
docker_username = "your_username"
docker_pat = "dckr_pat_your_token_here"

dlt reads this file automatically at runtime. With the harness, the setup-secrets skill prompts you for the values and never handles the raw credential in chat. For production, see setting up credentials with dlt.

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What Docker Verified Publisher data can I load into DuckDB?

These are the Docker Verified Publisher endpoints dlt can load into DuckDB:

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How do I load only new Docker Verified Publisher records?

The Docker Verified Publisher API reference does not document a timestamp or sequence field for these endpoints, so there is nothing to advertise here as verified. Pick a field from the endpoints table above that increases with every write, then set it as the cursor_path.

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{"name": "repositories", "endpoint": {
    "path": "v2/repositories/{namespace}/",
    # Replace with a field that increases on every write.
    "incremental": {"cursor_path": "REPLACE_ME", "initial_value": "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z"},
}}

On the first run dlt loads everything from initial_value; on every run after that it requests only what changed and appends with write_disposition="merge" if you set a primary key. See incremental loading.

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What does the generated Docker Verified Publisher pipeline look like?

A standard dlt REST API pipeline — the same code you would write by hand, loading /v2/auth/token and /v2/access-tokens from the Docker Verified Publisher API into DuckDB:

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import dlt
from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources

@dlt.source
def docker_verified_publisher_source(token=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://hub.docker.com/api/publisher/analytics/v1",
            "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": token},
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "repositories", "endpoint": {"path": "v2/repositories/{namespace}/", "data_selector": "results"}},
            {"name": "search_repositories", "endpoint": {"path": "v2/search/repositories/", "data_selector": "results"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def load_docker_verified_publisher_to_duckdb() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="docker_verified_publisher_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="docker_verified_publisher_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(docker_verified_publisher_source())
    print(load_info)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    load_docker_verified_publisher_to_duckdb()

Run it with python docker_verified_publisher_pipeline.py. The agent iterates on this until it loads cleanly — you review and approve, rather than write it from scratch.

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How do I query Docker Verified Publisher data in DuckDB?

dlt creates one table per resource. Query the loaded data with Python or SQL — or ask your agent to, through the MCP server's execute_sql_query tool.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("docker_verified_publisher_pipeline").dataset()
df = data.repositories.df()
print(df.head())

SQL:

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SELECT * FROM docker_verified_publisher_data.repositories LIMIT 10;

See querying your data with dataset and exploring it in marimo notebooks.

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How do I deploy the Docker Verified Publisher to DuckDB pipeline in production?

The pipeline runs locally, which is ideal for prototyping and one-off analysis. When you need it on a schedule, monitored on every load, and shared with your team, deploy the same dlt code on the dltHub platform — no infrastructure to maintain. The prompt above already ends with "run it on dltHub", so your agent can take it there directly.

• Deploy & schedule — run the pipeline as a managed job with automatic retries.
• Monitor — observable job queues, alerting, and load metrics for every run.
• Transform — promote raw Docker Verified Publisher loads into governed, documented models.
• Visualize & share — explore data in notebooks and publish live dashboards instead of static screenshots.

Book a demo →

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What other destinations can I load Docker Verified Publisher data to?

dlt loads into any of these — only the destination argument changes:

Set dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. On the dltHub platform the same pipeline runs against a managed Iceberg lakehouse. See the full destinations list.

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Next steps

• Ready for production? Book a demo of the dltHub platform →
• dlt LLM-native workflow docs
• REST API source reference
• Join the dlt community on Slack