httpbin Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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httpbin is a service designed for testing HTTP requests and responses, allowing developers to inspect headers, methods, status codes, and authentication behavior. The REST API base URL is https://httpbin.org and httpbin does not require authentication for general usage, though it provides specific endpoints to test HTTP authentication methods..

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 httpbin data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from httpbin?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
get/getGETReturns GET data
headers/headersGETReturns all request headers
ip/ipGETReturns the requester's IP address
user_agent/user-agentGETReturns the User-Agent header
uuid/uuidGETReturns a UUID4

How do I authenticate with the httpbin API?

The service supports various authentication methods including Basic, Bearer, and Digest, which are used to test client handling of these standard HTTP mechanisms. For Bearer authentication, the client must include an 'Authorization' header with the value 'Bearer '.

1. Get your credentials

httpbin is a public, open-source HTTP request and response testing service. It does not have a user dashboard, account system, or API keys. To "authenticate" with httpbin for testing purposes, you must use its specific authentication endpoints. For basic authentication, you define your own username and password by making a request to /basic-auth/{user}/{passwd}. For bearer authentication, you test against the /bearer endpoint by providing an Authorization: Bearer header. These endpoints are designed for client-side testing and do not require prior credential registration.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.httpbin_source] httpbin_user = "your_username" httpbin_password = "your_password" httpbin_bearer_token = "your_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 httpbin 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 httpbin_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline httpbin_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset httpbin_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/httpbin.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 /basic-auth/{user}/{passwd} and /bearer from the httpbin 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 httpbin_source(none_authentication_is_implemented_as_specific_test_endpoints_rather_than_global_api_level_requirements=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://httpbin.org", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": none_authentication_is_implemented_as_specific_test_endpoints_rather_than_global_api_level_requirements}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "get", "endpoint": {"path": "get"}}, {"name": "headers", "endpoint": {"path": "headers"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="httpbin_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="httpbin_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(httpbin_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("httpbin_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.get.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM httpbin_data.get LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("httpbin_pipeline").dataset() data.get.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 httpbin 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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