Charlie Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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CharlieHR is a human resources management platform offering a REST API for accessing team member, leave, and company information. The REST API base URL is https://charliehr.com/api/v1 and Requests require an API token in the Authorization header..

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 Charlie data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Charlie?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
team_membersteam_membersGETList all team members
leave_requestsleave_requestsGETList all leave requests
leave_allowancesleave_allowancesGETList all leave allowances
salariessalariesGETList all salaries
officesofficesGETList all offices
teamsteamsGETList all teams

How do I authenticate with the Charlie API?

The API uses the Authorization header with a token formatted as 'Token token=client_id

'.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to your CharlieHR account as a Super Admin or Administrator. 2. Expand the Company section from the left-hand navigation sidebar. 3. Click on Integrations. 4. Navigate to the API Access (or API Keys) tab. 5. In the Your API Keys box, follow the instructions to generate new keys. 6. Copy your Client ID and Client Secret immediately; the Client Secret is only displayed once. Store these securely, as they cannot be retrieved again.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.charlie_source] client_id = "your_client_id_here" client_secret = "your_client_secret_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 harness:

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:

dlthub 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 Charlie 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 charlie_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline charlie_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 employees and companies from the Charlie 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 charlie_source(api_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://charliehr.com/api/v1", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": api_token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "team_members", "endpoint": {"path": "team_members"}}, {"name": "leave_requests", "endpoint": {"path": "leave_requests"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="charlie_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="charlie_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(charlie_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("charlie_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.team_members.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM charlie_data.team_members LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("charlie_pipeline").dataset() data.team_members.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 Charlie 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.
dlthub ai toolkit data-exploration install dlthub ai toolkit dlthub-platform install

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