Load Sftp data to DuckDB

SFTPGo is an open-source managed file transfer platform that provides a comprehensive REST API for system management and file operations. Everything needed to build a working Sftp → 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 Sftp 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 Sftp 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 Sftp 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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Sftp API at a glance

These values come from the Sftp API documentation. Check them against the vendor's current reference before relying on them in production.

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How do I authenticate with the Sftp API?

SFTPGo supports JWT Bearer tokens (via HTTP Basic Auth to the token endpoint) or long-lived API keys. API keys are passed via the X-SFTPGO-API-KEY header, while JWTs are passed via the Authorization: Bearer header.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain an API key for the SFTPGo REST API, navigate to the WebAdmin UI. Access the Server Manager section, then select API Keys. Create a new key with the desired scope (Admin or User). The full API key value is displayed only at creation time; ensure you copy and store it securely immediately. API key authentication must also be enabled for the specific user or admin account under their profile settings in the WebAdmin UI.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.sftp_source]
api_key = "your_api_key_here"
# If using a scoped key without an associated account, append the username:
# api_key = "your_api_key_here.username"

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 Sftp data can I load into DuckDB?

These are the Sftp endpoints dlt can load into DuckDB:

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How do I load only new Sftp records?

Sftp exposes after on backend/3.0.0/users, 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.

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{"name": "users", "endpoint": {
    "path": "backend/3.0.0/users",
    "incremental": {"cursor_path": "after", "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 Sftp pipeline look like?

A standard dlt REST API pipeline — the same code you would write by hand, loading /api/v2/users and /api/v2/user/token from the Sftp API into DuckDB:

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

@dlt.source
def sftp_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "/api/v2",
            "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": api_key},
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "users", "endpoint": {"path": "backend/3.0.0/users"}},
            {"name": "folders", "endpoint": {"path": "backend/3.0.0/folders"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def load_sftp_to_duckdb() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="sftp_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="sftp_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(sftp_source())
    print(load_info)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    load_sftp_to_duckdb()

Run it with python sftp_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 Sftp 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("sftp_pipeline").dataset()
df = data.users.df()
print(df.head())

SQL:

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SELECT * FROM sftp_data.users LIMIT 10;

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

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How do I deploy the Sftp 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 Sftp 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 Sftp 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