Dynamics 365 Business Central Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a Dynamics 365 Business Central-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

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Dynamics 365 Business Central is an ERP platform that provides a REST API for connecting third-party solutions to manage financial and business data. The REST API base URL is https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/v2.0 and all requests require an OAuth 2.0 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 pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Dynamics 365 Business Central data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Dynamics 365 Business Central:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
companiesapi/v2.0/companiesGETvalueLists all companies in the environment
itemsapi/v2.0/companies({id})/itemsGETvalueLists items within a specific company
customersapi/v2.0/companies({id})/customersGETvalueLists customers within a specific company
vendorsapi/v2.0/companies({id})/vendorsGETvalueLists vendors within a specific company
sales_invoicesapi/v2.0/companies({id})/salesInvoicesGETvalueLists sales invoices within a specific company

How do I authenticate with the Dynamics 365 Business Central API?

Authentication is performed using the OAuth 2.0 protocol via Microsoft Entra ID. Requests must include an Authorization header with a Bearer token: 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'.

1. Get your credentials

Dynamics 365 Business Central utilizes Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) OAuth 2.0 for authentication. To obtain credentials: 1. Sign in to the Azure portal and navigate to App registrations. 2. Register a new application to represent your integration. 3. On the 'API permissions' page, select 'Add a permission', choose 'Dynamics 365 Business Central', and grant 'Delegated permissions' (e.g., Financials.ReadWrite.All). 4. Navigate to 'Certificates & secrets', select 'New client secret', and save the generated secret value immediately as it cannot be retrieved later. 5. Record the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID from the app's 'Overview' page for use in your authentication flow.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.dynamics_365_business_central_source] access_token = "REPLACE_ME"

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 Dynamics 365 Business Central 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 dynamics_365_business_central_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline dynamics_365_business_central_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset dynamics_365_business_central_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/dynamics_365_business_central.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline dynamics_365_business_central_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 companies and items (or customers as standard v2.0 API entities) from the Dynamics 365 Business Central 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 dynamics_365_business_central_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/v2.0", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": access_token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "items", "endpoint": {"path": "api/v2.0/companies({id})/items", "data_selector": "value"}}, {"name": "customers", "endpoint": {"path": "api/v2.0/companies({id})/customers", "data_selector": "value"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="dynamics_365_business_central_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="dynamics_365_business_central_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(dynamics_365_business_central_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("dynamics_365_business_central_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.items.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM dynamics_365_business_central_data.items LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("dynamics_365_business_central_pipeline").dataset() data.items.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 Dynamics 365 Business Central 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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