Telesign Python API Docs | dltHub

Telesign is a communications platform that provides SMS verification and messaging services via REST APIs. The REST API base URL is https://rest-ww.telesign.com and All requests require HTTP Basic authentication using the account SID and auth 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 Telesign data in under 10 minutes.

---

What data can I load from Telesign?

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

---

How do I authenticate with the Telesign API?

Include an Authorization: Basic <base64(account_sid:auth_token)> header on every request.

1. Get your credentials

1. Log in to the Telesign developer portal at https://developer.telesign.com.
2. Navigate to My Account → API Credentials.
3. Copy the Account SID (used as the username) and the Auth Token (used as the password).
4. Store these values securely; they will be used for HTTP Basic authentication in API calls.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

Copy
[sources.telesign_sms_verify_source]
username = "YOUR_ACCOUNT_SID"
auth_token = "YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN"

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:

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

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

Copy
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:

Copy
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 Telesign 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:

Copy
python telesign_sms_verify_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

Copy
dlt pipeline telesign_sms_verify_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 verify_sms and sms_status from the Telesign API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

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

@dlt.source
def telesign_sms_verify_source(auth_token=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://rest-ww.telesign.com",
            "auth": {
                "type": "http_basic",
                "password": auth_token,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "verify_sms", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/verify/{reference_id}"}},
            {"name": "sms_status", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/sms/{message_id}"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="telesign_sms_verify_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="telesign_sms_verify_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(telesign_sms_verify_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):

Copy
import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("telesign_sms_verify_pipeline").dataset()
sessions_df = data.verify_sms.df()
print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

Copy
SELECT * FROM telesign_sms_verify_data.verify_sms LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

Copy
import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("telesign_sms_verify_pipeline").dataset()
data.verify_sms.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 Telesign 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.

---

Troubleshooting

Authentication errors

• 401 Unauthorized – Occurs when the Basic auth header is missing or the SID/auth token are incorrect. Verify that username (Account SID) and password (Auth Token) are correct.

Rate limiting

• Telesign enforces request limits per account. If you receive a 429 Too Many Requests response, back off for at least 30 seconds before retrying.

Pagination quirks

• The Verify and SMS status endpoints return a single object, not paginated lists. For endpoints that do return collections, use the next_page_token (if provided) to fetch subsequent pages.

Common status code mappings

• 400 Bad Request – Invalid parameters, e.g., missing phone_number (code 3101).
• 500 Internal Server Error – Transient server issue; retry after a short delay.

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.

Copy
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