Apache Pinot Python API Docs | dltHub
Build a Apache Pinot-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI Workbench support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.
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Apache Pinot's REST API allows real-time data ingestion with ingestion-level aggregations, controlled by the aggregation config. Offline aggregations require separate handling. Pinot supports data ingestion from AVRO, JSON, or CSV formats. The REST API base URL is Controller: http://<controller_host>:9000; Broker (query): http://<broker_host>:8099 and no authentication by default (Pinot does not require auth out-of-the-box).
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 pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Apache Pinot data in under 10 minutes.
What data can I load from Apache Pinot?
Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Apache Pinot:
| Resource | Endpoint | Method | Data selector | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cluster_info | /cluster/info | GET | (object) | Cluster metadata (e.g., clusterName) |
| health | /health | GET | (plain text) | Controller health check (returns "OK" on success) |
| periodic_tasks | /periodictask/names | GET | (top-level array) | List names of periodic controller tasks |
| leader_tables | /leader/tables | GET | leadControllerEntryMap (object) | Map of lead controllers to tableNames arrays |
| debug_tables | /debug/tables/{tableName}?type={OFFLINE | REALTIME}&verbosity={0 | 1} | GET |
| query_sql | /query/sql | POST | resultTable.rows | Broker SQL query endpoint; result rows in resultTable.rows |
| query | /query | POST | resultTable.rows | Broker multi‑stage query endpoint; result rows in resultTable.rows |
How do I authenticate with the Apache Pinot API?
By default Pinot Controller and Broker REST APIs are unauthenticated; access control (TLS, proxy, or HTTP auth) must be added externally (reverse proxy, API gateway) if required. Include Content-Type: application/json for query POSTs.
1. Get your credentials
Pinot has no centralized dashboard credentials for its REST API. To secure APIs, deploy a reverse proxy or API gateway (e.g., nginx, OAuth proxy) in front of Controller/Broker and obtain credentials from that system. There are no built-in API keys/tokens to obtain from Pinot itself.
2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml
[sources.apache_pinot_source] # No built-in auth; keep empty unless using a proxy that requires credentials
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 venv && source .venv/bin/activate uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"
1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:
dlt 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:
dlt ai toolkit rest-api-pipeline install
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 Apache Pinot 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:
python apache_pinot_pipeline.py
If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:
Pipeline apache_pinot_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset apache_pinot_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/apache_pinot.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs
Inspect your pipeline and data:
dlt pipeline apache_pinot_pipeline 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 leader_tables and query from the Apache Pinot 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 apache_pinot_source(=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "Controller: http://<controller_host>:9000; Broker (query): http://<broker_host>:8099", "auth": { "type": "none", "": , }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "leader_tables", "endpoint": {"path": "leader/tables", "data_selector": "leadControllerEntryMap"}}, {"name": "query", "endpoint": {"path": "query/sql", "data_selector": "resultTable.rows"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="apache_pinot_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="apache_pinot_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(apache_pinot_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("apache_pinot_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.leader_tables.df() print(sessions_df.head())
SQL (DuckDB example):
SELECT * FROM apache_pinot_data.leader_tables LIMIT 10;
In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:
import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("apache_pinot_pipeline").dataset() data.leader_tables.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 Apache Pinot data to?
dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:
| Destination | Example 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 Workbench:
data-exploration— Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.dlthub-runtime— Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install
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