SurveyCTO Python API Docs | dltHub

SurveyCTO is a mobile data collection platform that provides a REST API for exporting form data. The REST API base URL is https://{your_server}.surveycto.com/api and SurveyCTO API uses HTTP Basic authentication (username and password)..

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 SurveyCTO data in under 10 minutes.

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What data can I load from SurveyCTO?

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

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How do I authenticate with the SurveyCTO API?

Send an Authorization: Basic <base64‑encoded-username:password> header with each request.

1. Get your credentials

1. Log in to SurveyCTO with an admin or privileged user.
2. Navigate to User Settings → Roles & Permissions.
3. Locate the user that will call the API and edit the role.
4. Enable the Allow server API access toggle.
5. Save the changes. The username and password of that user are now the API credentials to be used with HTTP Basic authentication.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.surveycto_data_source]
username = "your_surveycto_username"
password = "your_surveycto_password"

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.

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How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

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uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

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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:

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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 SurveyCTO 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:

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python surveycto_data_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

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dlt pipeline surveycto_data_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.

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Python pipeline example

This example loads forms_data_wide_json and forms_files_csv from the SurveyCTO API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

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import dlt
from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources

@dlt.source
def surveycto_data_source(username=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://{your_server}.surveycto.com/api",
            "auth": {
                "type": "http_basic",
                "username": username,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "forms_data_wide_json", "endpoint": {"path": "api/v2/forms/data/wide/json/{formId}"}},
            {"name": "forms_files_csv", "endpoint": {"path": "api/v1/forms/files/csv/{formId}"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="surveycto_data_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="surveycto_data_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(surveycto_data_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.

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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):

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("surveycto_data_pipeline").dataset()
sessions_df = data.forms_data_wide_json.df()
print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

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SELECT * FROM surveycto_data_data.forms_data_wide_json LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("surveycto_data_pipeline").dataset()
data.forms_data_wide_json.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.

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What destinations can I load SurveyCTO data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.

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Troubleshooting

Authentication errors

• 401 Unauthorized / 403 Forbidden – Occur when the username/password are incorrect or the user does not have Allow server API access enabled. Verify credentials and permission flag.

Rate limiting

• SurveyCTO may throttle requests. If you receive a 429 Too Many Requests response, pause and retry after the period indicated in the Retry-After header.

Pagination

• Large data exports use start and limit query parameters. Omit them to retrieve the first page. Continue requesting subsequent pages by incrementing start until the returned array is empty.

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

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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.

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dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install
dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

• How to deploy a pipeline
• How to explore your data in marimo Notebooks
• How to query your data in Python with dataset
• Join the dlt community on Slack