Shotgun Software Python API Docs | dltHub

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

Last updated:

ShotGrid is a production tracking and review platform with a REST API for managing projects, assets, shots, and tasks. The REST API base URL is https://your_site.shotgridstudio.com/api/v1 and All requests require a Bearer token obtained via OAuth 2.0 client‑credentials flow..

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 Shotgun Software data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Shotgun Software?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Shotgun Software:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
projectsentity/projectGETdataList all projects.
shotsentity/shotGETdataList all shots.
tasksentity/taskGETdataList all tasks.
assetsentity/assetGETdataList all assets.
versionsentity/versionGETdataList all versions of files.
uploadupload/filePOSTUpload a file to ShotGrid (non‑GET).

How do I authenticate with the Shotgun Software API?

Obtain a Bearer token by POSTing client_id and client_secret to the /auth/access_token endpoint, then include Authorization: Bearer <token> on every request.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log into your ShotGrid site.
  2. Click your user avatar → PreferencesAPI Scripts.
  3. Click Create New Script.
  4. Enter a name for the script; the system will generate a Script Key.
  5. Copy the Script Name (client_id) and Script Key (client_secret); store them securely.
  6. Use these values in the OAuth client‑credentials request to obtain a Bearer token.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.shotgun_software_source] client_id = "your_script_name" client_secret = "your_script_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 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 Shotgun Software 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 shotgun_software_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline shotgun_software_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 projects and shots from the Shotgun Software 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 shotgun_software_source(client_secret=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://your_site.shotgridstudio.com/api/v1", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "token": client_secret, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "projects", "endpoint": {"path": "entity/project", "data_selector": "data"}}, {"name": "shots", "endpoint": {"path": "entity/shot", "data_selector": "data"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="shotgun_software_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="shotgun_software_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(shotgun_software_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("shotgun_software_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.projects.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM shotgun_software_data.projects LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("shotgun_software_pipeline").dataset() data.projects.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 Shotgun Software 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

Authentication Errors

  • 401 Unauthorized – Occurs when the Bearer token is missing, expired, or invalid. Refresh the token using the client credentials flow.
  • 403 Forbidden – Indicates the script does not have permission for the requested entity.

Rate Limiting

  • ShotGrid enforces request limits per user. When a 429 Too Many Requests response is received, respect the Retry-After header before retrying.

Pagination Quirks

  • List endpoints return a links object with next and previous URLs. Continue fetching pages until links.next is null. Missing or malformed links can cause incomplete data retrieval.

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

Was this page helpful?

Community Hub

Need more dlt context for Shotgun Software?

Request dlt skills, commands, AGENT.md files, and AI-native context.