Twilio Python API Docs | dltHub

Twilio is a cloud communications platform that provides REST APIs to send/receive SMS/MMS, make and control voice calls, buy and manage phone numbers, handle recordings, conferences, and other telephony-related resources. The REST API base URL is https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01 and All requests use HTTP Basic authentication (API Key/Secret or Account SID/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 Twilio data in under 10 minutes.

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What data can I load from Twilio?

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

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How do I authenticate with the Twilio API?

Authenticate via HTTP Basic auth: username = API Key SID (recommended) or Account SID; password = API Key Secret (recommended) or Auth Token. Include credentials in the standard Authorization header (Basic ) or use curl -u.

1. Get your credentials

1. Sign in to the Twilio Console (https://www.twilio.com/console). 2. For production create an API Key: Console > Settings > API Keys & Tokens > Create API Key. 3. Save the generated API Key SID and API Key Secret. 4. For quick/testing use your Account SID and Auth Token shown on the Console dashboard.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.twilio_source]
username = "ACxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
password = "your_api_key_secret_or_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.

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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 Twilio 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 twilio_pipeline.py

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

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Pipeline twilio_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds
1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset twilio_data
The duckdb destination used duckdb:/twilio.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 twilio_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 messages and incoming_phone_numbers from the Twilio 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 twilio_source(auth=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01",
            "auth": {
                "type": "http_basic",
                "password": auth,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "messages", "endpoint": {"path": "Accounts/{AccountSid}/Messages.json", "data_selector": "messages"}},
            {"name": "incoming_phone_numbers", "endpoint": {"path": "Accounts/{AccountSid}/IncomingPhoneNumbers.json", "data_selector": "incoming_phone_numbers"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="twilio_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="twilio_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(twilio_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("twilio_pipeline").dataset()
sessions_df = data.messages.df()
print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

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SELECT * FROM twilio_data.messages LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("twilio_pipeline").dataset()
data.messages.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 Twilio 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 failures

If you get 401 Unauthorized, verify you are using HTTP Basic auth with correct username and password (API Key SID and API Key Secret recommended; Account SID and Auth Token also work). Ensure the Authorization header contains Basic <base64(username:password)> and that there are no extra spaces.

Rate limiting and 429 responses

Twilio may return 429 Too Many Requests for rate‑limited endpoints. Implement exponential backoff and respect the Retry-After header when present. Use API Keys and scoped keys where appropriate to distribute load.

Pagination quirks

List responses return paginated objects with fields such as next_page_url, previous_page_url, page_size, start, end and a plural resource key that contains the array of records (e.g., "messages", "calls"). Use the provided next_page_url to iterate pages or supply PageSize and Page parameters where supported.

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