Plaid - Identity Verification Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Plaid is an open-finance platform providing APIs to connect financial accounts, verify identities, and manage financial data. The REST API base URL is https://production.plaid.com and all requests require client_id and secret credentials via headers or body.

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 Plaid - Identity Verification data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Plaid - Identity Verification?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Plaid - Identity Verification:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
identity_verification/identity_verification/createPOSTCreate a new identity verification
identity_verification/identity_verification/getPOSTRetrieve a previously created identity verification
identity_verification/identity_verification/listPOSTidentity_verificationsFilter and list identity verifications
identity_verification/identity_verification/retryPOSTAllow a user to retry an identity verification
identity_verification/identity_verification/report/pdf/getPOSTRetrieve a PDF report of an identity verification

How do I authenticate with the Plaid - Identity Verification API?

Authentication requires both a client_id and a secret, which can be passed as headers (PLAID-CLIENT-ID and PLAID-SECRET) or in the request body.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Sign up for a Plaid developer account at https://dashboard.plaid.com/signup. 2. Log in to the Plaid Dashboard. 3. Navigate to the 'Developers' menu and select 'Keys' (https://dashboard.plaid.com/developers/keys). 4. Retrieve your 'client_id' and the 'secret' for your desired environment (Sandbox or Production). Ensure your application and company profiles are completed in the Dashboard settings if you intend to move to Production.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.plaid_identity_verification_source] plaid_client_id = "your_client_id_here" plaid_secret = "your_secret_here" plaid_environment = "sandbox" # or "production" plaid_template_id = "your_template_id_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 Plaid - Identity Verification 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 plaid_identity_verification_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline plaid_identity_verification_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset plaid_identity_verification_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/plaid_identity_verification.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 /identity_verification/create and /identity_verification/get from the Plaid - Identity Verification 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 plaid_identity_verification_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://production.plaid.com", "auth": {"type": "api_key", "api_key": api_key}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "identity_verification_list", "endpoint": {"path": "identity_verification/list", "data_selector": "identity_verifications"}}, {"name": "identity_verification_get", "endpoint": {"path": "identity_verification/get"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="plaid_identity_verification_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="plaid_identity_verification_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(plaid_identity_verification_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("plaid_identity_verification_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.identity_verification_list.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM plaid_identity_verification_data.identity_verification_list LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("plaid_identity_verification_pipeline").dataset() data.identity_verification_list.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 Plaid - Identity Verification 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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