Simplybook Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Simplybook is an online scheduling platform that provides a JSON‑RPC and REST API for managing bookings, services, clients and other resources. The REST API base URL is https://user-api.simplybook.me and All requests require X-Company-Login and X-Token headers with a short‑lived access token..

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 Simplybook data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Simplybook?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
event_listgetEventListGET (JSON-RPC)Returns a list of events (services)
unit_listgetUnitListGET (JSON-RPC)Returns a list of business units (locations)
client_listadmin/clientsGETRetrieves all client records
service_listadmin/servicesGETRetrieves all service definitions
provider_listadmin/providersGETRetrieves all provider (staff) records

How do I authenticate with the Simplybook API?

Authentication requires a personal API key to obtain an access‑token via the getToken JSON‑RPC method; all subsequent calls must include the headers X-Company-Login (company identifier) and X-Token (access token).

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log into your SimplyBook.me admin panel.
  2. Navigate to SettingsCustom FeaturesAPI.
  3. Click Generate new API key (or copy the existing key).
  4. Copy the displayed API key; this is the credential you will pass to the getToken method.
  5. Keep the key secret – it is used to obtain short‑lived access tokens.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.simplybook_source] api_key = "your_api_key_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 Simplybook 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 simplybook_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline simplybook_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 event_list and unit_list from the Simplybook 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 simplybook_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://user-api.simplybook.me", "auth": { "type": "api_key", "token": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "event_list", "endpoint": {"path": "admin/services"}}, {"name": "unit_list", "endpoint": {"path": "admin/units"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="simplybook_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="simplybook_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(simplybook_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("simplybook_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.event_list.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM simplybook_data.event_list LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("simplybook_pipeline").dataset() data.event_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 Simplybook 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 access‑token is missing, expired (tokens are valid for one hour), or the X‑Company‑Login header is incorrect.
  • AccessDenied – the API key does not have permission for the requested operation.

Rate Limiting

  • Default limit is ~5,000 requests per day for standard accounts and up to 25,000 for enterprise.
  • Recommended maximum of 2 parallel requests and ~5 requests per second.
  • Exceeding limits may result in 429 Too Many Requests responses.

Pagination

  • Most REST GET endpoints support page and on_page query parameters.
  • Responses are wrapped in a pagination object; the actual records are in the top‑level array (no additional data selector needed).
  • Ensure to iterate through pages until the returned array size is smaller than on_page.

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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