Birdy Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Birdy is a Python library for Web Processing Services (WPS). It uses OWSLib from GeoPython. The official API documentation is available at https://birdy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api.html. The REST API base URL is https://api.twitter.com/1.1 and all requests require OAuth (OAuth1 user context or OAuth2 app‑only).

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 Birdy data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Birdy?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
users_showusers/showGETReturns a single user object for given user identifier
statuses_user_timelinestatuses/user_timelineGETReturns a list (array) of Tweet objects for a user's timeline
followers_listfollowers/listGETusersReturns a paginated list of user objects who follow the specified user
friends_listfriends/listGETusersReturns a paginated list of user objects the specified user is following
search_tweetssearch/tweetsGETstatusesReturns search metadata and matching tweets (tweets in 'statuses')
account_verify_credentialsaccount/verify_credentialsGETReturns the authenticated user's account object
users_lookupusers/lookupGETReturns fully‑hydrated user objects for up to 100 users per request (array)
statuses_showstatuses/show/:idGETReturns a single Tweet object by id
lists_memberslists/membersGETusersReturns list members under 'users'
application_rate_limit_statusapplication/rate_limit_statusGETresourcesReturns rate‑limit status object under 'resources'

How do I authenticate with the Birdy API?

Birdy uses OAuth1 (user context) or OAuth2 (app‑only). Credentials are sent via the Authorization header: "Authorization: OAuth …" for OAuth1 or "Authorization: Bearer " for OAuth2.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Sign in to developer.twitter.com and create a new project/app.
  2. In the app dashboard, note the API Key (consumer_key) and API Secret Key (consumer_secret).
  3. For user‑context access, generate an Access Token and Access Token Secret on the Keys & tokens page (or perform the OAuth1 flow).
  4. For app‑only access, POST consumer_key and consumer_secret to https://api.twitter.com/oauth2/token to receive a bearer token.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.birdy_source] consumer_key = "your_consumer_key" consumer_secret = "your_consumer_secret" access_token = "your_access_token" access_token_secret = "your_access_token_secret"

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 Birdy 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 birdy_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline birdy_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 users_show and statuses_user_timeline from the Birdy 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 birdy_source(consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.twitter.com/1.1", "auth": { "type": "oauth1", "access_token": consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "users_show", "endpoint": {"path": "users/show"}}, {"name": "statuses_user_timeline", "endpoint": {"path": "statuses/user_timeline"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="birdy_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="birdy_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(birdy_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("birdy_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.users_show.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM birdy_data.users_show LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("birdy_pipeline").dataset() data.users_show.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 Birdy 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 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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