Kapa AI Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Kapa AI is an API platform that allows developers to integrate AI agents and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities into their applications. The REST API base URL is https://api.kapa.ai and all requests require an X-API-KEY 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 Kapa AI data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Kapa AI?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
threads/query/v1/projects/
/threads/
GETPaginated list of threads for a project.
thread_detail/query/v1/threads/
/
GETRetrieve details about a specific thread.
project_chat/query/v1/projects/
/chat/
POSTChat with a kapa.ai project instance.
thread_chat/query/v1/threads/
/chat/
POSTFollow-up chat within an existing thread.
feedback_upsert/query/v1/feedback/upsert/POSTSubmit feedback for a question-answer pair.
documents/query/v1/projects/
/documents/
POSTFetch full content of ingested documents.

How do I authenticate with the Kapa AI API?

All requests must include an API key passed in the request header using the 'X-API-KEY' key.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to your Kapa dashboard at https://app.kapa.ai. 2. Navigate to Settings in the sidebar. 3. Select API Keys. 4. Click to create a new API key or copy an existing one. 5. Store the key securely as a server-side environment variable (e.g., KAPA_API_KEY). Never expose this key in client-side code. Note: Only team owners have the permissions to create or delete API keys.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.kapa_ai_source] kapa_api_key = "your_api_key_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 Kapa 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:

uv run python kapa_ai_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline kapa_ai_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset kapa_ai_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/kapa_ai.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 chat and sessions from the Kapa 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 kapa_ai_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.kapa.ai", "auth": {"type": "api_key", "api_key": api_key, "name": "X-API-KEY", "location": "header"}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "threads", "endpoint": {"path": "query/v1/projects/{project_id}/threads/"}}, {"name": "project_chat", "endpoint": {"path": "query/v1/projects/{project_id}/chat/"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="kapa_ai_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="kapa_ai_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(kapa_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("kapa_ai_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.threads.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM kapa_ai_data.threads LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("kapa_ai_pipeline").dataset() data.threads.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 Kapa 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.


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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