Load Minecraft Server Status data to DuckDB

The Minecraft Server Status API provides a RESTful interface for retrieving real-time status, player counts, and server information for Java and Bedrock Minecraft servers. Everything needed to build a working Minecraft Server Status → 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.

---

Build your Minecraft Server Status 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 Minecraft Server Status 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 Minecraft Server Status 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.

---

Minecraft Server Status API at a glance

These values come from the Minecraft Server Status API reference — the authoritative source if anything here looks out of date.

---

How do I authenticate with the Minecraft Server Status API?

The API does not use API keys or bearer tokens; however, a descriptive and non-empty User-Agent header is required for all requests to avoid a 403 Forbidden response.

1. Get your credentials

For public status APIs like mcsrvstat.us, no formal API key is required; however, a descriptive User-Agent header (e.g., 'headers={"User-Agent": "my-service-name/1.0 (contact@example.com)"}') must be provided to avoid 403 Forbidden responses. For private services like Minecraft Server Hub, log in to your account, navigate to the 'API Access' section of your server dashboard, and generate a secure API token.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

Copy
[sources.minecraft_server_status_source]
# For services requiring a token (replace YOUR_API_TOKEN with your actual key)
api_token = "YOUR_API_TOKEN" # For services requiring only a User-Agent
user_agent = "my-service-name/1.0 (contact@example.com)"

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.

---

What Minecraft Server Status data can I load into DuckDB?

These are the Minecraft Server Status endpoints dlt can load into DuckDB:

---

How do I load only new Minecraft Server Status records?

The Minecraft Server Status 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.

Copy
{"name": "status_java", "endpoint": {
    "path": "3/<address>",
    # 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.

---

What does the generated Minecraft Server Status pipeline look like?

A standard dlt REST API pipeline — the same code you would write by hand, loading 3/

and bedrock/3/ from the Minecraft Server Status API into DuckDB:

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

@dlt.source
def minecraft_server_status_source(user_agent=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://api.mcsrvstat.us/",
            "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": user_agent},
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "status_java", "endpoint": {"path": "3/<address>"}},
            {"name": "status_bedrock", "endpoint": {"path": "bedrock/3/<address>"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def load_minecraft_server_status_to_duckdb() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="minecraft_server_status_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="minecraft_server_status_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(minecraft_server_status_source())
    print(load_info)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    load_minecraft_server_status_to_duckdb()

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

---

How do I query Minecraft Server Status 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):

Copy
import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("minecraft_server_status_pipeline").dataset()
df = data.status_java.df()
print(df.head())

SQL:

Copy
SELECT * FROM minecraft_server_status_data.status_java LIMIT 10;

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

---

How do I deploy the Minecraft Server Status 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 Minecraft Server Status loads into governed, documented models.
• Visualize & share — explore data in notebooks and publish live dashboards instead of static screenshots.

Book a demo →

---

What other destinations can I load Minecraft Server Status 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.

---

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