Load UK Government API Documentation data to DuckDB

The UK Government provides a wide range of independent REST APIs managed by individual departments, each with its own specific documentation, base URL, and authentication requirements as listed in the central API Catalogue. Everything needed to build a working UK Government API Documentation → 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 UK Government API Documentation 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 UK Government API Documentation 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 UK Government API Documentation 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.

---

UK Government API Documentation API at a glance

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

---

How do I authenticate with the UK Government API Documentation API?

Authentication methods vary across different UK government departments and APIs, including OAuth 2.0 (Bearer token), API keys passed via headers (e.g., Authorization: Bearer or custom headers like 'apikey'), and HTTP Basic Authentication. Always consult the documentation for the specific service being integrated.

1. Get your credentials

The UK Government does not have a single unified REST API; APIs are managed by individual departments (e.g., HMRC, Companies House, NHS). To obtain credentials: 1. Identify the specific service or department API required via the GOV.UK API catalogue (api.gov.uk). 2. Register for a developer account on the specific department's Developer Hub/Portal. 3. Create a new 'application' within the portal to receive a unique client_id and client_secret, or generate an API key depending on the service authentication requirements. 4. For OAuth-based services, use these credentials to request access tokens via the service's authorization endpoint. For key-based services, store the API key securely and include it in the requested header (often 'Authorization' or 'apikey').

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

Copy
[sources.uk_government_api_documentation_source]
api_key = "your_api_key_or_client_secret_here"
client_id = "your_client_id_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.

---

What UK Government API Documentation data can I load into DuckDB?

These are the UK Government API Documentation endpoints dlt can load into DuckDB:

---

How do I load only new UK Government API Documentation records?

The UK Government API Documentation 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": "datasets", "endpoint": {
    "path": "v1/datasets",
    # 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 UK Government API Documentation pipeline look like?

A standard dlt REST API pipeline — the same code you would write by hand, loading v1/payments and v2/content from the UK Government API Documentation API into DuckDB:

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

@dlt.source
def uk_government_api_documentation_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "base URLs are service-specific and often differ between sandbox and production environments (e.g., https://api.service.hmrc.gov.uk vs https://test-api.service.hmrc.gov.uk)",
            "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": api_key},
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "datasets", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/datasets"}},
            {"name": "dataset_data", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/datasets/{dataset_id}/versions/{version_id}/data"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def load_uk_government_api_documentation_to_duckdb() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="uk_government_api_documentation_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="uk_government_api_documentation_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(uk_government_api_documentation_source())
    print(load_info)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    load_uk_government_api_documentation_to_duckdb()

Run it with python uk_government_api_documentation_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 UK Government API Documentation 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("uk_government_api_documentation_pipeline").dataset()
df = data.datasets.df()
print(df.head())

SQL:

Copy
SELECT * FROM uk_government_api_documentation_data.datasets LIMIT 10;

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

---

How do I deploy the UK Government API Documentation 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 UK Government API Documentation 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 UK Government API Documentation 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