Ashby Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a Ashby-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with automatic cursor support.

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Ashby is a talent acquisition platform that provides an API for accessing recruiting data such as candidates, jobs, applications, users, and interviews. The REST API base URL is https://api.ashbyhq.com and All requests require HTTP Basic authentication using the API key as the username and an empty password..

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 Ashby data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Ashby?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
candidate_listcandidate.listPOSTcandidatesReturns a list of candidate records
job_listjob.listPOSTjobsReturns a list of job records
application_listapplication.listPOSTapplicationsReturns a list of application records
user_listuser.listPOSTusersReturns a list of user records
interview_listinterview.listPOSTinterviewsReturns a list of interview records

How do I authenticate with the Ashby API?

The API uses HTTP Basic authentication. Include an Authorization: Basic <base64(api_key + ':')> header on each request and set Content-Type: application/json.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to the Ashby web app as an administrator.
  2. Navigate to Admin → Integrations → API Keys.
  3. Click Create new API key.
  4. Choose the required permissions for the key.
  5. Save the key and copy the generated API key value.
  6. Store the key securely for use in the dlt configuration.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.ashby_source] api_key = "your_api_key_here"

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 Ashby 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 ashby_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline ashby_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 candidate.list and job.list from the Ashby 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 ashby_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.ashbyhq.com", "auth": { "type": "http_basic", "api_key": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "candidate_list", "endpoint": {"path": "candidate.list", "data_selector": "candidates"}}, {"name": "job_list", "endpoint": {"path": "job.list", "data_selector": "jobs"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="ashby_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="ashby_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(ashby_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("ashby_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.candidate_list.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM ashby_data.candidate_list LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("ashby_pipeline").dataset() data.candidate_list.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 Ashby 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.


Troubleshooting

Authentication errors

  • 401 Unauthorized – The API key is missing, malformed, or invalid.
  • 403 Forbidden – The provided API key does not have permission for the requested endpoint.

Rate limiting

  • 429 Too Many Requests – The client has exceeded the allowed request rate. Back‑off and retry after a short delay.

Pagination quirks

  • Responses include moreDataAvailable (boolean) and nextCursor (string). Continue fetching while moreDataAvailable is true, supplying nextCursor in the request body to retrieve the next page.

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.


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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