Life360 Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a Life360-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI harness support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

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Life360 provides an internal, undocumented REST API used by its web and mobile clients for managing location-based circles and user data. The REST API base URL is https://api-cloudfront.life360.com and all requests require a Bearer token obtained via OAuth2 authentication.

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 Life360 data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Life360?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Life360:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
circles/circlesGETcirclesGet all Circles the user belongs to
circle_details/circles/{circle}GETGet detailed information for a specific Circle
circle_places/circles/{circle}/placesGETplacesGet all Places associated with a Circle
circle_members/circles/{circle}/membersGETGet all Members associated with a Circle
user_profile/users/meGETGet the authenticated user's profile information

How do I authenticate with the Life360 API?

The API requires a two-step authentication process: first, exchange user credentials for an access token via a Basic Auth header containing a client token; second, use the returned OAuth2 access token as a Bearer token in subsequent requests. Requests generally require the header 'Accept: application/json' and a custom 'User-Agent' string.

1. Get your credentials

Life360 does not provide a public developer dashboard for generating API keys. To obtain the necessary credentials (access token) for API access, follow these steps: 1) Open your web browser and navigate to https://life360.com/login. 2) Open the browser's Developer Tools (usually F12), go to the Network tab, and ensure it is recording. 3) Log in to your Life360 account as usual using your email and the one-time code sent to you. 4) In the Network tab, locate the POST request named 'token'. 5) In the response body of that request, copy the value of 'access_token'. Use this token as a Bearer token for your API requests. Note: This token is long-lived but may need to be refreshed periodically using these same steps if it expires.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.life360_source] access_token = "your_access_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 Life360 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 life360_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline life360_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset life360_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/life360.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 /v3/circles and /v3/circles/{circle}/members from the Life360 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 life360_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api-cloudfront.life360.com", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": api_key}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "circles", "endpoint": {"path": "circles", "data_selector": "circles"}}, {"name": "circle_members", "endpoint": {"path": "circles/{circle}/members"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="life360_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="life360_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(life360_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("life360_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.circles.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM life360_data.circles LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("life360_pipeline").dataset() data.circles.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 Life360 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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