Load Openproject data to DuckDB

OpenProject is an open-source project management software that provides a REST API for managing work packages, projects, and other system resources. Everything needed to build a working Openproject → 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 Openproject 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 Openproject 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 Openproject 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.

---

Openproject API at a glance

These values come from the Openproject API reference — the authoritative source if anything here looks out of date.

---

How do I authenticate with the Openproject API?

OpenProject supports multiple authentication methods including API tokens (used as Bearer tokens in the Authorization header) and Basic Auth (using 'apikey' as the username and the API token as the password). OAuth 2.0 is also supported with tokens passed as Bearer tokens.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain API credentials for OpenProject: 1. Log in to your OpenProject instance via the web browser. 2. Navigate to your 'My account' page (usually found via the user menu in the top-right corner). 3. Locate the 'Access token' section or tab. 4. If an API key does not exist, click 'Generate'; if one exists, you can click 'Reset' to create a new one. 5. Copy the generated API key immediately, as it cannot be retrieved once you navigate away. Use the username 'apikey' and your generated API key as the password when authenticating via HTTP Basic Auth.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

Copy
[sources.openproject_source]
api_key = "opapi-..."

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 Openproject data can I load into DuckDB?

These are the Openproject endpoints dlt can load into DuckDB:

---

How do I load only new Openproject records?

Openproject exposes updated_at on api/v3/work_packages, so dlt can request only the records that changed since the last run. Set it as the cursor_path and dlt tracks the high-water mark for you between runs.

Copy
{"name": "work_packages", "endpoint": {
    "path": "api/v3/work_packages",
    "data_selector": "_embedded.elements",
    "incremental": {"cursor_path": "updated_at", "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 Openproject pipeline look like?

A standard dlt REST API pipeline — the same code you would write by hand, loading /projects and /work_packages from the Openproject API into DuckDB:

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

@dlt.source
def openproject_source(api_token=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://<your-openproject-domain>/api/v3",
            "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": api_token},
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "work_packages", "endpoint": {"path": "api/v3/work_packages", "data_selector": "_embedded.elements"}},
            {"name": "queries", "endpoint": {"path": "api/v3/queries", "data_selector": "_embedded.elements"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def load_openproject_to_duckdb() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="openproject_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="openproject_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(openproject_source())
    print(load_info)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    load_openproject_to_duckdb()

Run it with python openproject_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 Openproject 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("openproject_pipeline").dataset()
df = data.work_packages.df()
print(df.head())

SQL:

Copy
SELECT * FROM openproject_data.work_packages LIMIT 10;

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

---

How do I deploy the Openproject 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 Openproject 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 Openproject 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