Nextcord Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Nextcord is a modern API wrapper for Discord, with documentation available at https://docs.nextcord.dev/en/stable/api.html. It includes classes like Client, AutoShardedClient, and command types for bot interactions. The API supports various features and customization options. The REST API base URL is https://discord.com/api and all requests require a Bot 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 pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Nextcord data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Nextcord?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
users/users/{user_id}GETFetch a single user object (returns single JSON object)
webhooks/webhooks/{webhook_id} or /webhooks/{webhook_id}/{webhook_token}GETRetrieve a webhook object (single object)
channel_webhooks/channels/{channel_id}/webhooksGETReturns a top‑level array of webhook objects
messages/channels/{channel_id}/messagesGETReturns a top‑level array of message objects (list of messages)
message/channels/{channel_id}/messages/{message_id}GETFetch a single message object
guild_widget/guilds/{guild_id}/widget.jsonGETmembers,channelsReturns widget object containing "members" and "channels" arrays
guild_member/guilds/{guild_id}/members/{user_id}GETFetch a single guild member object
guild_members_list/guilds/{guild_id}/members?limit={n}GETReturns a top‑level array of member objects

How do I authenticate with the Nextcord API?

Nextcord uses Discord bot tokens for REST requests; pass the token in the Authorization header prefixed with "Bot " (library functions call Client.login(token) and the library adds the proper header).

1. Get your credentials

  1. Sign in to Discord and open the Developer Portal at https://discord.com/developers/applications.
  2. Create a new Application.
  3. Under the "Bot" tab add a bot user.
  4. Click "Reset Token" (or "Copy") and complete 2FA to reveal a token.
  5. Store this token securely and use it as your bot_token; reset immediately if leaked.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.nextcord_source] bot_token = "your_bot_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 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 Nextcord 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 nextcord_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline nextcord_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 users and messages from the Nextcord 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 nextcord_source(bot_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://discord.com/api", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "token": bot_token, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "users", "endpoint": {"path": "users/{user_id}"}}, {"name": "messages", "endpoint": {"path": "channels/{channel_id}/messages"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="nextcord_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="nextcord_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(nextcord_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("nextcord_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.messages.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM nextcord_data.messages LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("nextcord_pipeline").dataset() data.messages.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 Nextcord 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 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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