Trello Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Trello is a collaboration platform for organizing projects into boards, lists, and cards via a REST API. The REST API base URL is https://api.trello.com/1 and all requests require an API key and token passed as query parameters or form fields.

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 add "dlt[hub]" and start loading Trello data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Trello?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
boards/members/me/boardsGETRetrieves all boards for the authenticated user
board_cards/boards/{id}/cardsGETRetrieves all cards on a specific board
board_lists/boards/{id}/listsGETRetrieves all lists on a specific board
board_actions/boards/{id}/actionsGETRetrieves actions for a specific board
organization_boards/organizations/{id}/boardsGETRetrieves all boards in a specific organization

How do I authenticate with the Trello API?

Trello uses API key and token-based authentication. These are typically passed as query parameters 'key' and 'token' in the URL, though an 'Authorization' header using the format 'OAuth oauth_consumer_key="{{apiKey}}", oauth_token="{{apiToken}}"' is also supported.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain Trello API credentials, follow these steps: 1. Create a Trello Power-Up by visiting the Trello Power-Up admin page (https://trello.com/power-ups/admin). 2. Select your Power-Up to view its settings. 3. Navigate to the API Key tab to find your API key. 4. To generate your API token, click the 'Token' link located next to your API key. 5. You will be redirected to an authorization page; click 'Allow' to grant access to your account and receive your API token. Note that the API key and token together provide authenticated access to your Trello account.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.trello_source] api_token = "REPLACE_ME"

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 init uv add "dlt[hub]"

1. Install the dlt AI harness:

uv run dlthub 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:

uv run dlthub ai toolkit install rest-api-pipeline

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 Trello 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:

uv run python trello_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

uv run dlthub 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 /members/me/boards and /boards/{boardId}/cards from the Trello 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 trello_source(api_token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.trello.com/1", "auth": {"type": "api_key", "api_key": api_token, "name": "token"}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "boards", "endpoint": {"path": "members/me/boards"}}, {"name": "board_cards", "endpoint": {"path": "boards/{id}/cards"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="trello_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="trello_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(trello_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("trello_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.board_cards.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM trello_data.board_cards LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("trello_pipeline").dataset() data.board_cards.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 Trello 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.


Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI harness:

  • data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
  • dlthub-platform — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
uv run dlthub ai toolkit install data-exploration uv run dlthub ai toolkit install dlthub-platform

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