Jina AI Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Jina AI is a Search Foundation providing embeddings, rerankers, classifiers and multimodal models for semantic search and retrieval. The REST API base URL is https://api.jina.ai and All requests require a Bearer API key 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 Jina AI data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Jina AI?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Jina AI:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
models/v1/modelsGETmodelsList available models and metadata (OpenAPI-style model list).
openapi/openapi.jsonGETOpenAPI (OAS) JSON schema for the API.
batch_status/v1/batch/{batch_id}GETPoll batch embedding job status (use id returned by POST /v1/batch/embeddings).
batch_output/v1/batch/{batch_id}/outputGETDownload completed batch embedding results (JSONL file URL or stream).
health/v1/healthGETService liveness/readiness health checks.
docs/docsGETSwagger UI / human docs.
embeddings/v1/embeddingsPOSTembeddingsGenerate embeddings for inputs (response contains embeddings array).

How do I authenticate with the Jina AI API?

Include your API key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header, e.g. 'Authorization: Bearer jina_YOUR_API_KEY'. API keys are managed in the Jina API dashboard.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Sign in or sign up at https://jina.ai/. 2) Open the API Dashboard at https://jina.ai/api-dashboard/key-manager (or visit the Key Manager link shown in the docs). 3) Create or copy an API key (prefixed like 'jina_...'). 4) Store the key securely and use it in requests as a Bearer token.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.jina_ai_source] api_key = "jina_YOUR_API_KEY"

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 Workbench:

dlt 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:

dlt 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 Jina AI 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 jina_ai_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline jina_ai_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 models and batch_status from the Jina AI 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 jina_ai_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.jina.ai", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "api_key": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "models", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/models", "data_selector": "models"}}, {"name": "batch_status", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/batch/{batch_id}"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="jina_ai_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="jina_ai_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(jina_ai_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("jina_ai_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.models.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM jina_ai_data.models LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("jina_ai_pipeline").dataset() data.models.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 Jina AI 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.


Troubleshooting

Authentication failures

If you see 401 errors (AUTH_MISSING_API_KEY or AUTH_INVALID_API_KEY), verify the Authorization header contains 'Bearer <your_key>' and that the key is active in the API dashboard.

Rate limiting

Responses contain X-RateLimit-Remaining-Requests and X-RateLimit-Remaining-Tokens headers. On 429 errors (RATE_REQUEST_LIMIT_EXCEEDED or RATE_TOKEN_LIMIT_EXCEEDED), back off and retry after a delay; paginate or reduce request size where possible.

Batch job polling

Batch embedding jobs are asynchronous: POST /v1/batch/embeddings returns a batch_id; poll GET /v1/batch/{batch_id} until status == 'completed' or 'failed'; then GET /v1/batch/{batch_id}/output to download the JSONL results.

Common error codes

API docs list standard errors: AUTH_MISSING_API_KEY (401), AUTH_INVALID_API_KEY (401), RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND (404), RATE_* (429), INTERNAL_ERROR (500), SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE (503), SERVICE_TIMEOUT (504).

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.


Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI Workbench:

  • data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
  • dlthub-runtime — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

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