PlayFab Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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PlayFab is a backend-as-a-service platform for live games providing REST APIs for player management, authentication, and game services. The REST API base URL is https://{titleId}.playfabapi.com and all requests (except login/registration) require an X-Authorization header with a session ticket.

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 PlayFab data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from PlayFab?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
inventory_items/Inventory/GetInventoryItemsPOSTItemsRetrieves a paged list of inventory items.
build_summaries/MultiplayerServer/ListBuildSummariesV2POSTBuildSummariesRetrieves a paged list of multiplayer server builds.
catalog_search/Catalog/SearchItemsPOSTItemsPerforms a fuzzy search against the public Catalog returning paged items.
lobbies/Multiplayer/FindLobbiesPOSTLobbiesRetrieves a paged list of lobbies matching search criteria.
leaderboard/Leaderboard/GetLeaderboardPOSTLeaderboardRetrieves a paged list of ranked users for a statistic.

How do I authenticate with the PlayFab API?

Most Client API operations require an X-Authorization header containing a session ticket obtained from a login call. Entity-model operations additionally require an X-EntityToken header.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain your PlayFab Developer Secret Key: 1. Sign in to the PlayFab Game Manager (developer.playfab.com). 2. Select your specific Title from the dashboard. 3. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner. 4. Select 'Title settings'. 5. Navigate to the 'Secret Keys' tab. Here you can view, create, or rotate your developer secret keys. Note that these keys are required for Admin and Server API calls and should never be exposed in client-side code.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.playfab_source] playfab_title_id = "YOUR_TITLE_ID" playfab_developer_secret_key = "YOUR_SECRET_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 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 PlayFab 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 playfab_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline playfab_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset playfab_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/playfab.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 GetEntityToken and AuthenticateSessionTicket from the PlayFab 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 playfab_source(x_authorization=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://{titleId}.playfabapi.com", "auth": {"type": "api_key", "api_key": x_authorization, "name": "X-Authorization", "location": "header"}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "inventory_items", "endpoint": {"path": "Inventory/GetInventoryItems", "data_selector": "Items"}}, {"name": "build_summaries", "endpoint": {"path": "MultiplayerServer/ListBuildSummariesV2", "data_selector": "BuildSummaries"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="playfab_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="playfab_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(playfab_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("playfab_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.inventory_items.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM playfab_data.inventory_items LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("playfab_pipeline").dataset() data.inventory_items.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 PlayFab 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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