Xola Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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Xola is a REST API for managing travel and experience booking data. The REST API base URL is https://sandbox.xola.com/api and All requests require an API key..

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 Xola data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Xola?

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

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
experiences/experiencesGETexperiencesDiscover available experiences
guides/sellers/{sellerId}/guides/{guideId}GETguideRetrieve a specific guide
orders/ordersGETordersList bookings/orders
sellers/sellersGETsellersRetrieve seller information
bookings/bookingsGETbookingsList booking records

How do I authenticate with the Xola API?

Authentication is performed by sending the API key in the X-API-KEY request header (or alternatively as an apiKey query parameter).

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to your Xola account at https://app.xola.com.
  2. Click on your account name in the top‑right corner and select Integrations or API Keys.
  3. Choose Create New API Key, give it a name, and copy the generated key.
  4. Store the key securely; you will use it as the value for X-API-KEY in request headers.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.xola_source] api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"

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 Xola 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 xola_pipeline.py

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

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

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline xola_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 experiences and guides from the Xola 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 xola_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://sandbox.xola.com/api", "auth": { "type": "api_key", "X-API-KEY": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "experiences", "endpoint": {"path": "experiences", "data_selector": "experiences"}}, {"name": "guides", "endpoint": {"path": "sellers/{sellerId}/guides/{guideId}", "data_selector": "guide"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="xola_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="xola_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(xola_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("xola_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.experiences.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM xola_data.experiences LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("xola_pipeline").dataset() data.experiences.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 Xola 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

If the X-API-KEY header is missing or invalid, the API returns a 401 Unauthorized response with a JSON error payload.

Rate Limiting

The documentation does not specify a rate‑limit header, so callers should implement exponential back‑off on 429 responses.

Pagination

Responses that return collections include pagination metadata (page, pageSize, totalCount). Clients must follow the next link or increment the page parameter to retrieve additional records.

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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