Dummy API Python API Docs | dltHub
Build a Dummy API-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.
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DummyJSON is a fake REST API that provides placeholder JSON data for products, users, posts, and other resources to assist with front-end development and testing. The REST API base URL is https://dummyjson.com and all requests to protected resources require a Bearer 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 add "dlt[hub]" and start loading Dummy API data in under 10 minutes.
What data can I load from Dummy API?
Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Dummy API:
| Resource | Endpoint | Method | Data selector | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| users | user | GET | data | Get list of users |
| user_details | user/ | GET | Get user full data by id | |
| posts | post | GET | data | Get list of posts |
| post_details | post/ | GET | Get post full data by id | |
| user_posts | user//post | GET | data | Get list of posts for specific user |
| tags | tag | GET | data | Get list of tags |
| tag_posts | tag//post | GET | data | Get list of posts for specific tag |
How do I authenticate with the Dummy API API?
Authentication is performed by passing a JWT token in the Authorization header as a Bearer token. The token is obtained via the /auth/login endpoint.
1. Get your credentials
- Navigate to the DummyAPI website (https://dummyapi.io/).
- Create an account by signing in via the provided authentication options.
- Once logged in, navigate to your account dashboard page.
- Locate your personal App ID; this value serves as the authentication token and must be sent as an HTTP header ('app-id') with every request.
2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml
[sources.dummy_api_source] api_key = "your_app_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 Dummy API 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 dummy_api_pipeline.py
If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:
Pipeline dummy_api_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset dummy_api_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/dummy_api.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 /user and /post from the Dummy API 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 dummy_api_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://dummyjson.com", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": access_token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "users", "endpoint": {"path": "user", "data_selector": "data"}}, {"name": "posts", "endpoint": {"path": "post", "data_selector": "data"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="dummy_api_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="dummy_api_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(dummy_api_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("dummy_api_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.users.df() print(sessions_df.head())
SQL (DuckDB example):
SELECT * FROM dummy_api_data.users LIMIT 10;
In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:
import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("dummy_api_pipeline").dataset() data.users.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 Dummy API 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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