Rick and Morty API Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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The Rick and Morty API is a public REST and GraphQL API providing character, location, and episode data from the Rick and Morty television series. The REST API base URL is https://rickandmortyapi.com/api and No authentication required.

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 Rick and Morty API data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Rick and Morty API?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Rick and Morty API:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
characters/characterGETresultsList all characters (paginated)
locations/locationGETresultsList all locations (paginated)
episodes/episodeGETresultsList all episodes (paginated)
character/character/{id}GETGet a single character by ID
location/location/{id}GETGet a single location by ID
episode/episode/{id}GETGet a single episode by ID

How do I authenticate with the Rick and Morty API API?

The primary public REST API at rickandmortyapi.com does not require authentication.

No credentials required. The Rick and Morty API API is public, so there is nothing to obtain and nothing to add to .dlt/secrets.toml — the pipeline above runs as written.


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 Rick and Morty API 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 rick_and_morty_api_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline rick_and_morty_api_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset rick_and_morty_api_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/rick_and_morty_api.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 character and episode from the Rick and Morty API 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 rick_and_morty_api_source(): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://rickandmortyapi.com/api", }, "resources": [ {"name": "characters", "endpoint": {"path": "character", "data_selector": "results"}}, {"name": "episodes", "endpoint": {"path": "episode", "data_selector": "results"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="rick_and_morty_api_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="rick_and_morty_api_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(rick_and_morty_api_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("rick_and_morty_api_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.character.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM rick_and_morty_api_data.character LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("rick_and_morty_api_pipeline").dataset() data.character.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 Rick and Morty API 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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