ACRCloud Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a ACRCloud-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

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ACRCloud provides automatic content recognition (ACR) services for audio identification and metadata management. The REST API base URL is https://identify-eu-west-1.acrcloud.com/v1 (Identification API); https://api-v2.acrcloud.com/api (Console API) and The service uses either HMAC-SHA1 signature-based authentication (Identification API) or Bearer token authentication (Console API).

dlt is an open-source Python library that handles authentication, pagination, and schema evolution automatically. dlthub provides AI context files that enable code assistants to generate production-ready pipelines. Install with uv add "dlt[hub]" and start loading ACRCloud data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from ACRCloud?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from ACRCloud:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
buckets/api/bucketsGETdataList buckets
base_projects/api/base-projectsGETList projects
audio_files/api/buckets/{bucket_id}/filesGETdataList audio files in a bucket
fs_files/api/fs-containers/
/files
GETList files in a scanning container
get_bucket/api/buckets/{id}GETRetrieve a bucket

How do I authenticate with the ACRCloud API?

The Identification API requires HMAC-SHA1 request signing where specific parameters (access_key, data_type, signature_version, timestamp) are signed using the access_secret and sent in the request body. The Console API uses Bearer authentication, requiring an Authorization header in the format 'Authorization: Bearer {token}'.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain credentials for ACRCloud services, log in to the ACRCloud Console. There are two primary types of credentials depending on your use case: 1) For the Identification API (audio recognition), navigate to your project settings to find your 'host', 'access_key', and 'access_secret'. 2) For the Console API (resource management), navigate to 'Account' > 'Developer Settings' to generate an 'access_token'.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.acrcloud_source] access_key = "your_project_access_key" access_secret = "your_project_access_secret" host = "identify-eu-west-1.acrcloud.com" console_access_token = "your_console_bearer_token"

dlt reads this automatically at runtime — never hardcode tokens in your pipeline script. For production environments, see setting up credentials with dlt for environment variable and vault-based options.


How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

uv init uv add "dlt[hub]"

1. Install the dlt AI harness:

uv run dlthub ai init --agent <your-agent> # <agent>: claude | cursor | codex

This installs project rules, a secrets management skill, appropriate ignore files, and configures the dlt MCP server for your agent. Learn more →

2. Install the rest-api-pipeline toolkit:

uv run dlthub ai toolkit install rest-api-pipeline

This loads the skills and context about dlt the agent uses to build the pipeline iteratively, efficiently, and safely. The agent uses MCP tools to inspect credentials — it never needs to read your secrets.toml directly. Learn more →

3. Start LLM-assisted coding:

Use /find-source to load data from the ACRCloud API into DuckDB.

The rest-api-pipeline toolkit takes over from here — it reads relevant API documentation, presents you with options for which endpoints to load, and follows a structured workflow to scaffold, debug, and validate the pipeline step by step.

4. Run the pipeline:

uv run python acrcloud_pipeline.py

If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:

Pipeline acrcloud_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset acrcloud_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/acrcloud.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

uv run dlthub show

This opens the Pipeline Dashboard where you can verify pipeline state, load metrics, schema (tables, columns, types), and query the loaded data directly.


Python pipeline example

This example loads https://identify-eu-west-1.acrcloud.com/v1/identify and https://api-v2.acrcloud.com/api/buckets from the ACRCloud API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

import dlt from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources @dlt.source def acrcloud_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://identify-eu-west-1.acrcloud.com/v1 (Identification API); https://api-v2.acrcloud.com/api (Console API)", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": access_token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "buckets", "endpoint": {"path": "api/buckets", "data_selector": "data"}}, {"name": "audio_files", "endpoint": {"path": "api/buckets/{bucket_id}/files", "data_selector": "data"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="acrcloud_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="acrcloud_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(acrcloud_source()) print(load_info)

To add more endpoints, append entries from the resource table to the "resources" list using the same name, path, and data_selector pattern.


How do I query the loaded data?

Once the pipeline runs, dlt creates one table per resource. You can query with Python or SQL.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("acrcloud_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.buckets.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM acrcloud_data.buckets LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("acrcloud_pipeline").dataset() data.buckets.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.


What destinations can I load ACRCloud data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

DestinationExample value
DuckDB (local, default)"duckdb"
PostgreSQL"postgres"
BigQuery"bigquery"
Snowflake"snowflake"
Redshift"redshift"
Databricks"databricks"
Filesystem (S3, GCS, Azure)"filesystem"

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.


Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI harness:

  • data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
  • dlthub-platform — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
uv run dlthub ai toolkit install data-exploration uv run dlthub ai toolkit install dlthub-platform

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