Chalk AI Python API Docs | dltHub
Build a Chalk AI-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.
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Chalk AI is a feature store platform providing a REST API for managing and querying real-time data features and pipeline metadata. The REST API base URL is https://api.chalk.ai/v1 and all requests require a Bearer token or client credentials headers.
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 Chalk AI data in under 10 minutes.
What data can I load from Chalk AI?
Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Chalk AI:
| Resource | Endpoint | Method | Data selector | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| environment_graph | /v1/environment/graph | GET | Retrieves metadata about the configured Chalk environment. | |
| deployment_graph | /v1/deployments/{deployment_id}/graph | GET | Retrieves metadata for a specific deployment, including features and resolvers. | |
| oauth_token | /v1/oauth/token | POST | Exchanges client credentials for an access token. | |
| query_online | /v1/query/online | POST | Executes an online single-row feature query. | |
| offline_query_status | /v4/offline_query/status | GET | Polls the status of an asynchronous offline query. |
How do I authenticate with the Chalk AI API?
Authentication uses the OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials flow to obtain an access token, which must be passed in the 'Authorization' header as 'Bearer <access_token>'. Alternatively, the API accepts 'X-Chalk-Client-Id' and 'X-Chalk-Client-Secret' headers for server-to-server requests.
1. Get your credentials
- Log in to your Chalk dashboard at https://dashboard.chalk.ai (or the URL provided for your organization). 2. Navigate to Settings, then select the Access Tokens or Service Tokens tab. 3. Click New Token to generate a new credential pair. 4. Select the necessary permissions (e.g., online query, offline query). 5. Copy the generated client_id and client_secret immediately, as the secret will not be visible again. You can also generate these via the Chalk CLI using the chalk login command.
2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml
[sources.chalk_ai_source] chalk_client_id = "your_client_id_here" chalk_client_secret = "your_client_secret_here" chalk_environment = "your_environment_id_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 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 Chalk AI 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 chalk_ai_pipeline.py
If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:
Pipeline chalk_ai_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset chalk_ai_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/chalk_ai.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 /v1/oauth/token and /v1/query/online from the Chalk AI 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 chalk_ai_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.chalk.ai/v1", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": access_token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "environment_graph", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/environment/graph"}}, {"name": "deployment_graph", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/deployments/{deployment_id}/graph"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="chalk_ai_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="chalk_ai_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(chalk_ai_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("chalk_ai_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.environment_graph.df() print(sessions_df.head())
SQL (DuckDB example):
SELECT * FROM chalk_ai_data.environment_graph LIMIT 10;
In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:
import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("chalk_ai_pipeline").dataset() data.environment_graph.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 Chalk AI 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 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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