YouTrack CLI Python API Docs | dltHub

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

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YouTrack is an issue tracking and project management platform that provides a REST API for programmatic access to tasks, projects, and administrative settings. The REST API base URL is {YouTrack-Service-URL}/api and all requests require an Authorization header with a Bearer permanent 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 add "dlt[hub]" and start loading YouTrack CLI data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from YouTrack CLI?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from YouTrack CLI:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
issues/api/issuesGETRead a list of issues
projects/api/admin/projectsGETRead a list of projects
users/api/usersGETRead a list of users
tags/api/tagsGETRead a list of tags
activities/api/activitiesPageGETRead a list of activity items

How do I authenticate with the YouTrack CLI API?

YouTrack uses token-based authentication via the Authorization HTTP header with the 'Bearer' scheme and the permanent token string as the credential.

1. Get your credentials

To obtain a permanent API token, follow these steps: 1. Log in to your YouTrack instance. 2. Click on your avatar in the application header and select Profile. 3. Navigate to the Account Security tab. 4. In the Tokens section, click the New token button. 5. Enter a name for the token and select the appropriate access scope (e.g., YouTrack). 6. Click Create token. 7. Copy the generated token immediately and store it securely, as it will not be displayed again.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.youtrack_cli_source] base_url = "https://your-instance.youtrack.cloud" api_token = "perm:your_generated_token_here"

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 YouTrack CLI 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 youtrack_cli_pipeline.py

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

Pipeline youtrack_cli_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset youtrack_cli_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/youtrack_cli.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 /api/users/me and /api/issues from the YouTrack CLI 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 youtrack_cli_source(token=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "{YouTrack-Service-URL}/api", "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": token}, }, "resources": [ {"name": "issues", "endpoint": {"path": "issues"}}, {"name": "projects", "endpoint": {"path": "admin/projects"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="youtrack_cli_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="youtrack_cli_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(youtrack_cli_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("youtrack_cli_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.issues.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM youtrack_cli_data.issues LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("youtrack_cli_pipeline").dataset() data.issues.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 YouTrack CLI 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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