CityFibre Python API Docs | dltHub

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

Last updated:

CityFibre's API documentation is available at https://ala-api.docs.cityfibre.com/. The ticketing API handles fault reports and notifications. The installation API manages job packs and engineer details. The REST API base URL is https://api-gw.cityfibre.com and all requests require HTTPS client TLS certificate authentication and source IP whitelisting.

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 CityFibre data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from CityFibre?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
change_log/changeLog.txtGETDownloadable changelog (plain text)
ala_query_address_searchqueryAddressSearchPOSTqueryAddressSearchResponse/AddressSearchQuery addresses by addressKey or postcode (SOAP)
ala_query_products_for_locationqueryProductsForLocationPOSTqueryProductsForLocationResponse/productsQuery available products for a UPRN/address (SOAP)
ala_query_installation_detailsqueryInstallationDetailsPOSTqueryInstallationDetailsResponse/installationDetailsGet installation details for a serviceIdentifier (SOAP)
service_diagnostics_requestrequestServiceDiagnosticsPOSTserviceDiagnosticsRequest diagnostics for a serviceId (SOAP)
partner_notify_jobnotifyJobPOSTjsonrpc/result or top‑level fieldsPartner Installation JSON‑RPC notifyJob
partner_close_jobcloseJobPOSTjsonrpc/resultClose job acknowledgement
partner_get_photosphotosPOSTphotos/photoListInstallation photos payload (SOAP/JSON‑RPC)

How do I authenticate with the CityFibre API?

CityFibre APIs authenticate buyers by mutual TLS (client SSL certificate presented on HTTPS) and by validating the certificate DN (buyer identifier). Access is also restricted to pre‑agreed source IP addresses. Requests must include Content-Type: text/xml (SOAP) or application/json where applicable.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Contact CityFibre API team (e.g., customer-api-queries@cityfibre.com or apiteam@cityfibre.com) to request onboarding.
  2. Provide a PEM‑encoded client certificate (issued by a recognised CA) for pre‑production and production environments.
  3. Supply the list/range of source IP addresses that will be used.
  4. CityFibre will assign a Unique Buyer Identifier per environment; ensure the certificate DN matches this identifier.
  5. Configure your HTTP client to present the client certificate (and private key) on the TLS handshake for all API calls.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.cityfibre_source] client_cert_path = "/path/to/client_cert.pem" client_key_path = "/path/to/client_key.pem" buyer_identifier = "YOUR_BUYER_IDENTIFIER"

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 CityFibre 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 cityfibre_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline cityfibre_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 queryInstallationDetails and requestServiceDiagnostics from the CityFibre 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 cityfibre_source(client_cert=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api-gw.cityfibre.com", "auth": { "type": "http_client_cert", "client_cert_path": client_cert, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "query_installation_details", "endpoint": {"path": "queryInstallationDetails", "data_selector": "installationDetails"}}, {"name": "request_service_diagnostics", "endpoint": {"path": "requestServiceDiagnostics", "data_selector": "serviceDiagnostics"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="cityfibre_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="cityfibre_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(cityfibre_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("cityfibre_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.query_installation_details.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM cityfibre_data.query_installation_details LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("cityfibre_pipeline").dataset() data.query_installation_details.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 CityFibre 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

Was this page helpful?

Community Hub

Need more dlt context for CityFibre?

Request dlt skills, commands, AGENT.md files, and AI-native context.