Sevdesk Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Sevdesk API is a REST-based API for invoicing, expense management, contacts, and accounting. The REST API base URL is https://my.sevdesk.de/api/v1 and All requests require a per-user API token for 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 pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Sevdesk data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Sevdesk?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
contactContactGETobjectsRetrieve a list of contacts
invoiceInvoiceGETobjectsRetrieve a list of invoices
invoice_posInvoicePosGETobjectsRetrieve a list of invoice positions
contact_addressContactAddressGETobjectsRetrieve a list of contact addresses
voucherVoucherGETobjectsRetrieve a list of vouchers
partPartGETobjectsRetrieve a list of parts
orderOrderGETobjectsRetrieve a list of orders
check_accountCheckAccountGETobjectsRetrieve a list of check accounts

How do I authenticate with the Sevdesk API?

The sevdesk API uses token authentication. Every request requires a 32-character hexadecimal API token provided as the value of an Authorization Header.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain API credentials, log in to your sevdesk account. Navigate to the UI where API tokens can be found or generated. The token is a 32-character hexadecimal string and has an infinite lifetime unless regenerated.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.sevdesk_source] api_token = "your_api_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 Sevdesk 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 sevdesk_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline sevdesk_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 contact and invoice from the Sevdesk 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 sevdesk_source(api_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://my.sevdesk.de/api/v1", "auth": { "type": "api_key", "api_token": api_token, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "contact", "endpoint": {"path": "Contact", "data_selector": "objects"}}, {"name": "invoice", "endpoint": {"path": "Invoice", "data_selector": "objects"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="sevdesk_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="sevdesk_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(sevdesk_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("sevdesk_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.contact.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM sevdesk_data.contact LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("sevdesk_pipeline").dataset() data.contact.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 Sevdesk 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.


Troubleshooting

Common Error Codes

The sevdesk API can return several standard HTTP error codes:

  • 400 Bad Request: Indicates that the request was malformed or invalid.
  • 401 Unauthorized: Occurs when authentication credentials are missing or invalid.
  • 403 Forbidden: The authenticated user does not have the necessary permissions to access the resource.
  • 404 Not Found: The requested resource could not be found.
  • 409 Conflict: Indicates a conflict with the current state of the resource.
  • 500 Internal Server Error: A generic error indicating an issue on the server side.

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.


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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