HRworks Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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HRworks is a German HR and payroll platform providing a REST API for accessing employee, absence, and payroll data. The REST API base URL is https://api.hrworks.de/v2 and all requests 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 HRworks data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from HRworks?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
health_check/v2/health-checkGETSimple health check; returns 200 when API is available.
organization_units/v2/organization-unitsGETdataLists organization units for the company.
permanent_establishments/v2/permanent-establishmentsGETdataLists all permanent establishments.
absences/v2/absencesGETdataLists absences for specified persons and date interval.
persons/v2/personsGETdataLists persons (employees).
absence_types/v2/absences/absence-typesGETdataLists absence type definitions.

How do I authenticate with the HRworks API?

Authentication requires a POST request to the /v2/authentication endpoint using accessKey and secretAccessKey credentials to receive a short-lived JWT, which must then be sent in the 'Authorization' header using the 'Bearer' scheme for all subsequent requests.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log into your HRworks instance as an administrator. 2. In the sidebar, navigate to Basics and select Integrations. 3. Click on the HR WORKS-API tile. 4. Click the New key pair button to generate a new set of credentials. 5. Download the provided .txt file containing your accessKey and secretAccessKey. 6. Select the newly generated key pair, configure the required permissions (scopes) at the bottom of the page, and save your changes. Use these credentials to authenticate against the /v2/authentication endpoint to obtain a bearer token for API access.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.hrworks_source] token = "your_jwt_token_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 HRworks 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 hrworks_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline hrworks_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset hrworks_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/hrworks.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 /v2/authentication and /v2/persons (or /v2/absences) from the HRworks 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 hrworks_source(token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.hrworks.de/v2", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "organization_units", "endpoint": {"path": "v2/organization-units", "data_selector": "data"}}, {"name": "persons", "endpoint": {"path": "v2/persons", "data_selector": "data"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="hrworks_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="hrworks_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(hrworks_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("hrworks_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.persons.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM hrworks_data.persons LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("hrworks_pipeline").dataset() data.persons.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 HRworks 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.
uv run dlthub ai toolkit install data-exploration uv run dlthub ai toolkit install dlthub-platform

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