Google Analytics Data Python API Docs | dltHub
Build a Google Analytics Data-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.
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The Google Analytics Data API provides programmatic access to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) report data. The REST API base URL is https://analyticsdata.googleapis.com and all requests require an OAuth 2.0 Bearer token.
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 Google Analytics Data data in under 10 minutes.
What data can I load from Google Analytics Data?
Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Google Analytics Data:
| Resource | Endpoint | Method | Data selector | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| audience_exports | properties/{property}/audienceExports | GET | audienceExports | Lists all audience exports for a property. |
| audience_exports | properties/{property}/audienceExports/{audience_export} | GET | Gets configuration metadata about a specific audience export. | |
| metadata | properties/{property}/metadata | GET | Returns metadata for dimensions and metrics. | |
| audience_exports | properties/{property}/audienceExports | POST | Creates an audience export for later retrieval. | |
| audience_exports_query | properties/{property}/audienceExports/{audience_export} | POST | audienceRows | Retrieves an audience export of users. |
How do I authenticate with the Google Analytics Data API?
The API uses OAuth 2.0. Requests require an 'Authorization' header with the value 'Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' and may require an 'x-goog-user-project' header for billing and quota tracking.
1. Get your credentials
- Navigate to the Google Cloud Console and select or create a project.\n2. Enable the 'Google Analytics Data API' in the API Library.\n3. Go to 'IAM & Admin' > 'Service Accounts' and click 'Create Service Account'.\n4. After creating the account, click on it, navigate to the 'Keys' tab, select 'Add Key' > 'Create new key', and choose 'JSON' to download your credentials file.\n5. Grant the service account email access to your target Google Analytics property by adding it as a user in the Google Analytics UI (Admin > Account/Property Access Management) with at least 'Viewer' role.\n6. For dlt pipelines, set the path to the downloaded JSON file in your environment variable: export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS='/path/to/your-service-account-file.json'.
2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml
[sources.google_analytics_data_source] credentials_path = "/path/to/your-service-account-file.json" property_id = "your_ga4_property_id"
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 Google Analytics Data 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 google_analytics_data_pipeline.py
If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:
Pipeline google_analytics_data_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset google_analytics_data_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/google_analytics_data.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 runReport and batchRunReports from the Google Analytics Data 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 google_analytics_data_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://analyticsdata.googleapis.com", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": access_token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "audience_exports", "endpoint": {"path": "properties/{property}/audienceExports", "data_selector": "audienceExports"}}, {"name": "audience_exports_query", "endpoint": {"path": "properties/{property}/audienceExports/{audience_export}:query", "data_selector": "audienceRows"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="google_analytics_data_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="google_analytics_data_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(google_analytics_data_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("google_analytics_data_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.audience_exports.df() print(sessions_df.head())
SQL (DuckDB example):
SELECT * FROM google_analytics_data_data.audience_exports LIMIT 10;
In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:
import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("google_analytics_data_pipeline").dataset() data.audience_exports.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 Google Analytics Data 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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